October-December 2012 Theme Read: Asia II (Asia II: China, Mongolia, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macao, Tibet

Welcome to the final Reading Globally theme read for 2012! The topic this quarter is China and neighbouring countries, which includes Hong Kong, Taiwan, Macau, Tibet, Mongolia - we've also included some books by people of Chinese descent, and by non-Chinese people writing about China.

ETA: aargh, messed up subject line of thread. I thought that there was a grace period where you could change the subject - but if so, either it's very short or I'm technologically challenged, since I can't work out how to do it. Apologies.

China

A young soldier in Tiananmen Square


Zhouzhuang, a well-preserved historic town near Suzhou in Eastern China


Guilin, South China


Taiwan
Taipei, the capital of Taiwan


Worshippers at Longshan temple, in the oldest part of Taipei

Hong Kong

Hong Kong Island


Hong Kong street signs


Macau

The ruins of the Cathedral of St Paul, Macau


Rua da Felicidade, Macau

Tibet
Tibetan landscape


Inside a Tibetan monastery


Mongolia
Suhbaatar square in Ulaanbaatar, the capital of Mongolia


The Mongolian steppe


All photos from Flickr, click here for attribution

We (mainly Steven) have collected a lot of information, including a list of authors and some introductions, on a wiki for this theme read: please do add to it!

Other resources include:
Modern Chinese Literature And Culture Resource Center, including a list of authors and translated literature from China, Taiwan and Hong Kong, with links to those available online
The National Museum Of Taiwanese Literature
Hong Kong English Literature Database
Cha, a Hong Kong-based Asian literary journal
Pathlight, an English-language literary magazine from China
Peregrine, selected English translations from a Chinese literary magazine
Macau literary festival

There are a number of short stories from China available to read online, for example here or here. Also a few from Taiwan here.

Interesting articles:
On the Hong Kong book festival
On modern Chinese fiction

Please make suggestions if you come across any more resources, stories or articles!

And finally, for recommended reads, you can also try the Asia II thread.

Steven adds: If I had to recommend a single author from modern China it would be Mo Yan. He is among the betting favorites for this year's Nobel Prize. Red Sorghum is his best-known work.

Our planned reads, in case anyone would like to join us.

Steven:

China
Turbulence by Jia Pingwa
To Live by Yu Hua
The Song of Everlasting Sorrow by Wang Anyi
Garlic Ballads by Mo Yan
Serve the People! by Yan Lianke
Wang in Love and Bondage by Wang Xiaobo
UFO in Her Eyes by Xiaolu Guo

Hong Kong
The Unwalled City by Xu Xi

Taiwan
The Butcher's Wife and Other Stories by Li Ang

Tibet
Red Poppies by Alai

Margaret:

Taiwan
Taipei People by Hsien-Yung Pai
The Taste Of Apples by Huang Chun-ming
Orphan Of Asia by Zhuoliu Wu
Wintry Night by Li Qiao
Bound Feet by Catherine Dai

Hong Kong:
Hong Kong Stories by Eva Hung
Marvels Of A Floating City by Xi Xi

China:
Mulberry and Peach by Hualing Nieh
I Love Dollars, and other stories by Zhu Wen
The Picador Book of Contemporary Chinese Fiction

I visited China two years ago. My photos of such things as the Great Wall can't compare with what you'll find elsewhere, so I thought I'd share the pictures I took of everyday scenes in various parts of the country. This first set is from a farming village in Shaanxi Province near China's ancient capital city of Xi'an (formerly Chang'an). The young gentleman enjoying his Saturday morning cartoons is lying on a kang, a traditional raised and heated platform used for both sitting and sleeping. The last picture is looking out the back door of the same house.

Clicking on the image will take you to a larger version of the same picture.

     

This next batch of photos is from a relocation village along the Yangtze River. Many farms, villages and even cities were flooded by the waters rising behind the Three Gorges Dam. The Chinese government built replacement housing in advance on higher ground. Over three million people had to be relocated.

The baby in the second picture is wearing bottomless pants--a traditional expedient that avoids the necessity for diapers. The government prohibits these in public spaces because of the obvious sanitation problems, but the ban is widely disregarded.

Again, click on the photo if you want to see a larger version.

     

This is an elementary school in the same village. The indoor photos are all of a second grade classroom. The children on the playground are doing stress-reduction exercises. The poster on the left in the final photo depicts Thomas Edison.

           

Here are pictures of a food market in the city of Fengdu on the Yangtze River.

         

And finally some miscellaneous photos of life in various cities and along the rivers. The first picture shows retirees doing Tai Chi in a public park in Beijing. The birds lined up along the river are captive cormorants used for fishing.

               

Wow! Thanks for setting this up, Steven and Margaret! I'll post a link from the Reading Globally home page in the next few days when I have a little time on my home computer.

Fantastic photos, Steven! A really great picture of everyday life outside the big cities.

On that note, I've just discovered a great database of China-related journalism here, a work in progress but which will eventually contain all the China-related essays and reviews that The New York Review of Books has published since 1963. There is a series in which people recall their first visits to China - many in the 1960s, 70s and 80s.

I've added a link to this thread and to the wiki on the Reading Globally home page.

That was me, above, wearing my administrator hat (Lois and I are the co-administrators of this group).

Here are the Chinese titles I currently have on my TBR:

Brothers by Yu Hua
Vertical Motion by Can Xue
Camel Xiangzi by Lao She -- an LT recommendation
Outlaws of the Marsh by Shi Nai'an -- an LT recommendation
Love in a Fallen City by Eileen Chang
Monkey by Wu Cheng-en -- This is apparently an abridged version of Journey to the West; I've had it for decades and may even have read it in the 70s, although I don't remember it.
Dream of the Red Chamber by Xueqin Cao -- another abridged version I've had for decades and might have read
Poems of the Late T'ang edited by A. C. Graham

I am not sure which of these I will read and/or which other books I will look for.

I also have a nonfiction title, Mao's Great Famine.

Here are some Chinese novels I've read in the past several years.

Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out by Mo Yan
Wolf Totem by Jiang Rong
Serve the People! by Yan Lianke

Wow, what a great thread! The photos are fabulous; thanks for sharing them.

I have a couple of dozen unread books that would fit this challenge. I won't be back in Atlanta for another two weeks, but this is what I came up with, off of the top of my head and from books and authors that have already been posted:

Fiction:
Eileen Chang, Love in a Fallen City
Yu Hua, Brothers
Ha Jin, Nanjing Requiem
Maxine Hong Kingston, Tripmaster Monkey: His Fake Book
Timothy Mo, The Monkey King
Jiang Rong, Wolf Totem
Can Xue, Vertical Motion
Mo Yan, Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out

Nonfiction:
Ying-Ying Chang, The Woman Who Could Not Forget: Iris Chang Before and Beyond the Rape of Nanking- A Memoir
Frank Dikötter, Mao's Great Famine
Julia Lovell, The Opium War: Drugs, Dreams and the Making of China (I'll buy this book later this week)

Great thread! Thanks. Seconding Steven's recommendation of Mo Yan.

In addition to the above Chinese fiction, I would also recommend War Trash by Ha Jin (I recommend this everywhere) and Beijing Coma, a devastating novel.

I can't read Chinese, but of the translations I've seen, I think anything Howard Goldblatt has translated always reads well.

From non Chinese writers, there is Man's Fate (on the Wiki)

Actually, I thought this might be a good reason for me to finally finish up The Good Earth trilogy. I've only read the first. Of course, Pearl S. Buck isn't Chinese, but they're about China. :)

What a fabulous thread and wiki! Thanks so much for the resources.

I know I really enjoyed the nonfiction work God's Chinese Son by Jonathan Spence when I read it many years ago.

I've got Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China by Jung Chang on my TBR stack. This seems like a good excuse to read it.

Is anyone interested in watching a film or two from this region? When DD was home this summer she picked out several that were available from Netflix. The only one we actually watched was the classic Raise the Red Lantern.

>19 SassyLassy: Thanks for the reminder about Beijing Coma; I'll definitely read it for this challenge.

I agree with your recommendation of War Trash.

I just read this article about Yu Hua"> in the current issue of the New York Review of Books. You probably have to have an account (free if you have a print subscription) to read the whole article online.

ETA Here's a quote that I think is particulary relevant to this theme read, and something I've found to be true of some of the contemporary Chinese novels I've read. The article is by Ian Johnson.

"Most striking in Chinese literature is the lack of editing. Indeed, publishing houses rarely revise or improve on drafts; many writers send in first drafts—after all, no one who reads it will object. Some of Yu’s own works exhibit these traits; Brothers feels about one hundred pages too long and, although poignant and hilarious, it is sometimes also maudlin and full of clichés. These problems go beyond literature: Chinese artists and academics are often astonishingly prolific because they tend to churn out works. One talented Chinese artist I know regularly produces three enormous shows a year; wiser and less greedy curators and gallery owners would have advised him against this. Academics sometimes publish a book a year, many of them regurgitations of earlier work or partially plagiarized material. The concept of blind peer reviews is all but unknown.

The unwillingness to criticize a “master”—whether he is an acclaimed writer, artist, or scholar—is ingrained in Chinese society. But these problems are also political. The Communist Party’s politicizing of journals and its ban on independent organizations inhibit the creation of the institutions of civil society—independent journals, professional groups, and open discussion—that are conducive to creative work."

Thank you for sharing all the pictures! Also the Wiki page is very impressive.

I think I'll be taking Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See off my shelf for this read. The author is not Chinese, but the story is historical fiction about foot binding and a secret language women invented in China.

# 24 -- Other movies that I've liked are "Mongol"; The Story of the Weeping Camel, and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

Flowers of War and The Banquet Bug by Geling Yan

I'm really looking forward to this theme, because this area has long be a favorite global read for me. I'd recommend the following (several are non-fiction):

Peony by Pearl Buck (China)
Iron and Silk by Mark Salzman (China) (NF memoir of his two years in China just after the 'door' was opened)
Across the Many Mountains by Bauren (Tibet) (NF)
The Girl Who Played Go by Shan Sa (China/Manchuria)
Colors of the Mountain by Da Chen (China) (NF)
Beyong the Narrow Gate by Chang (China)
Sky Burial by Xiran (Tibet) (NF)

I've also read Wild Swans and highly recommend it.

I have no idea what I'll be reading for this theme -- I probably have 30 books awaiting me, including War Trash and others by Ha Jin.

I'm also really looking forward to this quarter's reads. I have the following ready to go:

The Vagrants - Yiyun Li

Iron and Silk - Mark Salzman

The Rape of Nanking - Iris Chang

The Joy Luck Club - Amy Tan

Death of a Red Heroine - Qiu Xiaolong

Beijing Coma - Ma Jian

Wild Swans - Jung Chang

Red Sorghum: A Novel of China - Yan Mo

Garlic Ballads - Yan Mo

I'd really like to join in, reading any books based on Mongolia (as I've been there), Tibet, and rural China.

Not sure where to start though, so if anyone has got any recommendations, that would be fantastic. Thanks.

lunacat--have you read Wolf Totem: A Novel by Jiang Rong? I've only listened to the audiobook, but really enjoyed it. I may read River Town: Two Years on the Yangtze by Peter Hessler which might fit into your rural China reading. (Not rural, but in a small city in a remote region). It's a memoir by a US Peace Corp volunteer. DD has had several of his books assigned in her Asian studies classes.

Question about the wonderful, beautiful wiki. If we have an addition, should we add it? I see that there aren't any suggestions for Mongolia but would happily add Wolf Totem to it if that is allowed. If so, do you want us to add a note as to who made the addition?

banjo123--thank you for the movie suggestions. I really enjoyed CTHD and I've added the other two to my queue. (lunacat did you see the suggestions of films from banjo that were set in Mongolia?) Next time DD is here for a break, we plan on watching the next on her list--the King of Masks. (Mandarin for her, English subtitles for me!) If there is interest, we could start a thread about films from this region or revive the general thread about foreign films.

And because I often wander off into non-fiction, here are two recent LTER books that I've enjoyed:

--The Little Red Guard: A Family Memoir by Wenguang Huang-- a memoir of growing up in the cultural revolution
--A Galaxy of Immortal Women: The Yin Side of Chinese Civilization by Brian Griffith female deities in Chinese religions. I'm still working on this and have a bit of mixed feelings, but mostly enjoying it.

Another non-fiction that I recently picked up and that I will probably be reading is
Life and Death in Shanghai by Nien Cheng.

I have a few sitting on Mt. TBR that I'll try to get to:

Four Sisters of Hofei by Ann-Ping Chin
The Language of Threads by Gail Tsukiyama
The Distant Land of My Father by Bo Caldwell

In addition to books that have already been recommended, I'd like to recommend Women of the Silk by Gail Tsukiyama. I read it years ago, and really enjoyed it. It's about time I'm reading the follow-up! I'd also like to recommend Pearl Buck in China: Journey to the Good Earth by Hilary Spurling, which is a wonderful biography of Pearl Buck with much of the focus on her years in China.

#32 - We haven't found much in the way of native Mongolian literature available in translation, but I did read a work not long ago as an ER selection that is set in Mongolia: Tea of Ulaanbaatar by Christopher R. Howard, a former Peace Corps volunteer in Mongolia. I thought it was quite good.

There are lots of books to pick from that are set in rural China. One I would recommend is Red Sorghum by Mo Yan.

#33 - Yes, you may edit the Wiki if you are comfortable doing so. If not, just post your suggestions here and I or wandering_star will add them. You don't need to annotate the source of the change as that can be gotten from the Wiki history screen.

I put Wolf Totem under "Modern Chinese Literature" because the author is Chinese and the setting is Chinese Inner Mongolia rather than the country of Mongolia, but, in the absence of anything else from that county it wouldn't be a bad idea at all to make note there of Wolf Totem.

Wonderful photos Steven (#8-12) and the flickr images are thoughtfully put together as well (what a beauty the man in the first image is?!).

I read (a few years ago now) Gao Xingjian's Soul Mountain & One Mans Bible but want to read The Good Earth before the end of the year.

Being a fairly near neighbour over in Malaysia I will try to join with a few China and its environs reads in the next quarter.

Possible fiction reads:
Wolf Totem
One Man's Bible
A House Divided
An Insular Possession
Tai-Pan

I also have several non fiction books about China which may be trotted out such as :
On China by Kissinger
A History of China by John Keay

Thanks for all those wonderful photos and for the information on the Wiki.

Some in my huge stack that others might not have mentioned so far:

Once on a Moonless Night Dai Sijie
Empress Shan Sa - novel about Empress Wu, China's first female emperor

some non-fiction:

China's Son: Growing up in the Cultural Revolution Da Chen
Falling Leaves: The Memoir of an Unwanted Chinese Daughter Adeline Yen Mah
The River at the Center of the World - Simon Winchester - about the Yangtze
Wild Grass - Three Stories of Change in Modern China Ian Johnson
Leaving Mother Lake Yang Erche Namu - about the Moso people of the Himalayas
The Web That Has No Weaver - about Chinese medicine
Golden Boy Memoirs of a Hong Kong Childhood Martin Booth

And I can put in a good word about The Distant
Land of my Father Bo Caldwell - novel about the son of an American missionary in Shanghai during the WWII

And I just downloaded Garlic Ballads by Mo Yan for my Kindle for just $3.03!!

Fabulous thread and Wiki! I have yet to go through my books to see what I have that fits, but I know I have Red Sorghum and have just downloaded Garlic Ballads to my Kindle. Thanks for the heads-up on that great deal, Catarina.

Just by coincidence, I am currently reading a novel set in northern Mongolia, The Blue Sky: A Novel by Galsan Tschinag, a native Tuvan Mongolian who writes in German. I have only found one other of his books translated to English, The Gray Earth (a sequel to The Blue Sky). His Wikipedia page has references to online poetry translations, but McAfee thinks they are on untrusted sites.

Thank you bookwoman247 for reminding me that I have Land of My Father sitting on my iPad from months ago when it was a Kindle Daily Deal.

And thank you Caterina for the tip about Garlic Ballads which I just downloaded.

And thanks to all involved in getting the thread set up with great info, wiki and pictures. This thread is going to make for a great end of the year reading spree.

# 4 How are you liking The Blue Sky? It's on my list as well.

Conn Iggulden's series Conqueror about Genghis Khan could be an entry for Mongolia, although it is not written by a Mongolian, obviously. It's based on the Secret History and so is mostly accurate, according to my partner, who is a Genghis Khan geek.

>42 banjo123: I am enjoying The Blue Sky, banjo, mainly for it's descriptions of the High Altai Mountains region and the way of life of the nomadic Tuvans. It is a simple story, told from the viewpoint of a young child, but beautifully and effectively written. I plan to read the second book in this autobiographical trilogy, but the third is apparently not yet available in translation. I am very curious about this author, who is described as a shaman and the chief of all Tuvags, and reported to have gathered and led his people, scattered under a Communist regime, back into the mountains.

This thread looks marvelous! I recently read Vertical Motion by Can Xue :

Think subconscious, subterranean (literally and figuratively), and subversive! Think lyrical dreamscapes! Think brilliant! This is an absolutely outstanding collection of short stories. Can Xue's writing is breathtaking! Her writing makes me think of Kafka.....of Rushdie.....and David Foster Wallace. This is a collection of stories into which the reader must give themselves over and ride the tide of language, imagery, and power. Not for folks who need clear-cut plot......otherwise, a must read, perhaps multiple times, like a good poem. I would love to hear these stories read aloud!

I was looking forward to reading Vertical Motion for this theme read . . . and now even more so!

I just finished Turbulence by Jia Pingwa (first published 1987).

My full review is posted on the work page. This is not always a captivating novel, but it is an important portrait of rural China beginning the transition to capitalism in the immediate post-Mao years. The author exposes both bureaucratic corruption and risky entrepreneurial opportunism, but writes within a socialist framework. Jia is one of China's most popular authors.

What a wonderful thread!

I decided for this quarter's theme I am only going to consider books that are already sitting around here, but that still leaves me with a good list.

War Trash - Ha Jin

The Hundred Secret Senses - Amy Tan

A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers - Xiaolu Guo (not sure this really counts, since it's set in London, but I'd like to read it anyway)

Wild Swans - Jung Chang

Garlic Ballads - Yan Mo

The Secret Piano: From Mao's Labor Camps to Bach's Goldberg Variations - Zhu Xiao-Mei

The Good Earth - Pearl Buck

Where the Mountain Meets the Moon - Grace Lin

I am having real trouble with my first read for this thread, Chan Koonchung's The Fat Years. I loved the idea of the premise: China is prosperous and powerful, all its citizens are content, except for the few who have somehow worked out that there is a month of history missing, the very month which marked the turning point for China... Unfortunately, there is not much to it apart from the premise - there certainly isn't any plot, or characterisation. I am about fifty pages from the end now, but progressing verrrrry slowly.

ETA: well, I made it to the end, but I wouldn't recommend this for a reader who doesn't already know a lot about modern China. I can see why it was well-reviewed by China hands - in the intro, Julia Lovell says that the book is "almost unique ... in confronting the political no-go zones of life in China today". But if you aren't getting those subtleties, there is not much enjoyable about the book.

An interesting BBC article here about the Duke of Zhou, a semi-mythical figure you may find mentioned in your Chinese readings and the inspiration for many of the maxims of Confucius:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-19821144

Despite hemlokgang's rave review in 44, I'm having trouble with Vertical Motion by Can Xue; I've read the first three stories so far, and none of them has grabbed me. They are very metaphoric, and the characters seem colorless.

Mo Yan Wins!



By special arrangement with Reading Globally in honor of our quarterly theme, the Swedish Academy has named author Mo Yan the winner of the 2012 Nobel Prize in Literature. Mo is the second Chinese-born writer to earn the award, but the first Chinese citizen to do so. Mo is a prolific writer whose novels and stories have been translated into many languages. There are currently five of his novels and one collection of short stories in English translation:

Red Sorghum
The Garlic Ballads
The Republic of Wine
Big Breasts and Wide Hips
Life and Death are Wearing Me Out
Shifu, You'll Do Anything for a Laugh (stories)

I must confess to being surprised by Mo Yan winning, based on the one book of his I've read. As I've said elsewhere, I enjoyed Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out a lot, but it wore me out. Like several other works of contemporary Chinese literature I've read, it could have benefited from an editor. So I guess I'll have to read some of his other books.

Having read Red Sorghum I was less surprised, though I can't say it stood out above the works of other contenders such as Murakami, McCarthy, Atwood, Eco, etc. The criteria and motivations of the Swedish Academy are always something of a mystery, but there will always be more deserving authors than winners.

Like several other works of contemporary Chinese literature I've read, it could have benefited from an editor.

In what sense? For clarity? To shorten it? This could be a lead to a difference in culture or literary tradition that would be worth discussing.

From my 75 Books thread:

I'll definitely read Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out this month, probably next week. I've just purchased the Kindle version of The Garlic Ballads, which is on sale at the moment for $3.59 in the US; Kindle Prime members can borrow it for free.

ETA: Four other Kindle books by Mo Yan are currently on sale for US customers: The Republic of Wine ($3.03), Shifu, You'll Do Anything For a Laugh ($3.49), Big Breasts and Wide Hips ($9.99) and Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out ($9.99). I purchased the first two books now, as I suspect that the Kindle price will increase very soon!

Thanks for the alert on the Kindle prices, Darryl. I just purchased Shifu, You'll Do Anything for a Laugh. I already have all the others except Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out. I was holding off on that one in hopes the price would go down.

#53 Steven I know it's a broad generalization, and I read most of the Chinese fiction before I started reviewing books on LT, so I have to try to remember what I thought about them.

For Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out, I felt the story went on and on and became basically repetitive. While the idea behind the book was entertaining the first three or so times, it became dull when repeated more than that (I know this sounds opaque, but I'm trying not to give anything away.)

For Wolf Totem, I felt like I was being beaten over the head with the idea that the culture and the environment of Mongolia were wonderful and in danger. I got it, already.

Serve the People was an entertaining satire, and mercifully short, but I kind of got the idea.

Obviously, a generalization from three titles is probably useless, but if you look at the article I quoted in post 26, which I realize is somewhat patronizing, it seems that editing as we know it is not common in China today.

I do plan to read more contemporary Chinese works (I've had Brothers on the TBR for several years), so will be interesting to see if I have the same feelings about them. I also plan to read earlier Chinese works too, which may provide insight into whether length and repetitiveness represent a cultural/literary tradition or are a modern feature.

In all fairness, I don't find the stories in Vertical Motion which I'm reading now either too long or too repetitive, but they are not speaking to me either.

Vertical Motion by Can Xue



I've given up on this collection of short stories about half way through. Without a doubt, Can Xue's stories are inventive and imaginative, but I just couldn't get a grip on the ones I read. They are surrealistic,s ymbolic, and disturbing; some are dreamlike and almost hallucinatory. Maybe I just didn't feel like putting the effort into trying to understand what she was trying to say, but I do think first a story has to intrigue me for me to do that and hers just didn't.

I know it seems like the third quarter has just begun, but I've started a thread for your ideas on how to make theme reads better in 2012. Come on over!

Here are some points for discussion that you might want to keep in mind as you read and when you post your comments. These questions primarily apply to fiction, but you may find some of them relevant to your non-fiction reading as well.

I'm using "China" in the broadest sense to include all of the neighboring countries.

1. What unique aspects of Chinese culture are apparent in the work you are reading--modes of expression, family and gender roles, religion? How do these cultural characteristics affect not only the story you are reading but the way it is told? Would a Western author have written the novel differently?

2. Few places in the world have been as dangerous as China during most of the 20th century: floods, earthquakes, famines, wars, civil wars, and political violence killed tens of millions. In what ways, if any, does your author find meaning in the life of the individual in the face of ever-present and arbitrary death?

3. Chinese writers work under the constant threat of censorship. In your reading did you sense that the author was tiptoeing around a sensitive issue or perhaps making his point in an indirect or allegorical fashion to avoid censorship?

4. Modern Chinese authors are well-versed in Western literature, and it's not unusual to find literary allusions to Shakespeare, Cervantes, etc. alongside references to the Chinese classics. What references did you find? How did they strike you? Did you get a sense that the author was writing with Western readers in mind?

These are just some questions that have come to mind in my own reading and looking at the reviews posted so far. You are more than welcome to post your own discussion questions.

Chinese culture continues to fascinate Americans. The featured exhibit at this year's State Fair of Texas is a Chinese Lantern Festival, which features acres of illuminated sculpture and lanterns. My cell phone photos aren't very clear, but the first picture is of a 1/3 scale replica of Beijing's Temple of Heaven. The second photo shows lantern sculptures up to two storey's tall situated in a lagoon. The dragon in the last two pictures is about 100 feet long and is made of tens of thousands of pieces of porcelain dinnerware held in place with string.

     

I finished and REVIEWED Iron and Silk, Mark Salzman's delightful series of vignettes about his time in China (1982-84) teaching English at the Hunan Medical College. I loved the way he illuminated the lives of the common Chinese people at that time. It highlighted the kind, humble nature of the people he came in contact with.

Waiting by Ha Jin
first published 1999

Is love a habit, a duty, a passion? How do you know when you are in love? These are difficult questions to answer if you live in a society like Maoist China, where the topic is never discussed.

Lin Kong married Shuyu in 1963. It was a marriage arranged by his parents. Lin worked as a physician at an army hospital in Muji City. Shuyu stayed back in their village and looked after Lin's parents until their deaths and then tended their farm. Although Shuyu was a model wife by village standards, Lin had been reluctant to bring her to the city, embarrassed by her bound feet, to him a symbol of what he perceived as her overall backwardness.

In Muji, Lin met Manna Wu, a nurse. Hospital rules forbade men and women to meet outside the compound. Despite this stricture, the two were drawn together and gradually their interaction at work led others to identify them as a couple, despite the platonic nature of their relationship.

Each year on his twelve day holiday, Lin would return to his village and seek a divorce from Shuyu. Each year she would agree, but once in front of a judge, she would say no. Each year Manna Wu grew older and more frustrated by her situation, while Lin felt more guilty for letting her wait for his divorce, rather than getting on with her life. He tried to arrange other marriages for her, but nothing came of it.

The work unit had a rule that a divorce could be granted without the other partner's consent after eighteen years of separation. In the eighteenth year, Lin returned to his village with high hopes.

Waiting is a far bleaker novel than In the Pond. The twenty odd years of Chinese history it spans provide a background and context to the story.

In the winter of 1966 the hospital undertook camp-and-field training. For some reason a top general in Northeastern Military Command had issued orders in October that all the army had to be able to operate without modern vehicles, which not only were unreliable but also could soften the troops. The orders said "We must carry on the spirit of the Long March and restore the tradition of horses and mules."

For a month, a third of the hospital's staff would march four hundred miles through the countryside and camp at villages and small towns. Along the way, they would practice treating the wounded and rescuing the dying from the battlefield.

This may sound farfetched, but it is entirely plausible. It refers not only to a time of fuel and parts shortages, but also to an extremely tense period along the Sino-Soviet border.

Books by foreign authors, either in translation or in the original language were highly problematic. In an unguarded moment in 1972, a commissar explains to Manna Wu how he came across his translation of Leaves of Grass:

I got this copy twenty years ago from the translator himself...when I was a student...He was a well read man, a true scholar, but he died of pneumonia in 1957. Perhaps it was good for him to die young. With his problematic family background, he could hardly have escaped becoming a target for political movements.

He goes on to explain that this translation has been out of print since the early fifties. This was not a book you would want to be found with during the Cultural Revolution and makes the commissar politically suspect and hints at his probable fate.

At approximately the same time, Lin was diagnosed with TB and put in the hospital's Infectious Diseases Unit. There were two wings there: one filled mainly with TB patients and one with hepatitis patients, both diseases more prevalent in the crowded dirty situations so many Chinese were living in. It is telling that even a physician working and living in a hospital should fall victim to such a disease.

Even without the background though, this is an excellent novel, for we all wait for something. Is waiting active or passive? What is the nature of the thing we wait for, and would we consider it worth waiting for if it was usually readily available? Despite the seemingly straightforward narration, the reader is left seeking the answers to these questions and the broader question, what is the impact of waiting on life in the here and now?

Very well done review, SassyLassy. Thank you.

Excellent review of Waiting, SassyLassy.

Thanks doc and maggie. Other books I have read by Ha Jin are In the Pond, The Crazed and War Trash. I still have more books by him on the TBR pile.

Life and Death are Wearing Me Out by Mo Yan, translated from the Chinese by Howard Goldblatt
first published 2006 as Shengsi pilao

In 1948, the Chinese landlord Ximen Nao was murdered by his villagers. Such events were commonplace in the China of the time, but Ximen Nao felt he had been unjustly dealt with, for in his eyes, he had been an excellent landlord. Two years later, on January 1, 1950, still full of rage and still proclaiming his innocence, he was sent back to earth by Lord Yama, ruler of the underworld. Lord Yama couldn't bear to listen to him any longer.

Full of hope, Ximen Nao made the journey back, only to find he had been tricked. He had been reincarnated not as a human, but as a donkey foal. Worse yet, the farm where he landed was his own, now that of his former peasant, Lan Lian. Adding insult to injury, Lan's pregnant wife was Ximen Nao's former first concubine, Yingchun.

Ximen Donkey had retained enough of his previous humanity to not only follow the events in Ximen Village, but also to be recognized by his wife, Ximen Bai, now fallen upon hard times for having been married to a landlord. Lan and Yingchun also found something compelling in the donkey and treated him with extra care, going so far as to create a prosthetic hoof for him after he suffered a terrible accident.

When collectivization came, Lan refused to join the new cooperative and remained an independent farmer. This created great hardship for himself, Yingchun and their three children, the older two being twins born to Yingchun and Ximen Nao before his death. The hardship they experienced trying to make it on their own was made worse by the famine. Ten years after returning to earth, Ximen Donkey was killed and eaten by the starving villagers.

In awarding Mo Yan the Nobel Prize for literature, the Swedish Academy said his work "with hallucinatory realism merges folk tales, history and the contemporary". This perfectly summarizes this novel, in which Ximen Nao will return again and again in the cycle of life as various animals, until his mind is at peace. Lord Yama will not allow him to return as a human until all his hatred is gone, saying there is too much hatred on earth already.

In each incarnation, Ximen Nao will maintain links with his family, following them over the next forty years. His animal personae allow him free rein for observation and comment. His adventures as a pig on the Ximen Village Production Brigade Apricot Garden Pig Farm present the greatest opportunity for satire, as giant pig farms were one of Mao's great failed projects. Mo Yan himself is a character, first as the village's child mischief maker and later as a scurrilous author.

As Ximen Nao's earthly manifestations change, so too does the world around him. The Cultural Revolution comes and goes, Mao dies. Overt capitalism creeps back slowly at first, then with excessive speed and greed. By the end, there are billionaires in mansions and beggars on the streets once more. The wheel has turned completely. Ximen Nao has learned his lesson.

It's nobody's fault...Everything is determined by fate and there's no way anyone can escape it.

-------

This was a highly entertaining novel, full of sly humour and observation. Mo Yan has compressed fifty years of Chinese history into it without making it feel like as if he now he is covering this period, now that. The references are often made in passing and obliquely, so that for example, you realize the people in the labour unit are political prisoners, but don't feel you are being led there.

The sense of Chinese family life and its continuation as a cultural objective pervades the novel as the children of Ximen Nao and Lan Lian struggle through this period, only to have everyone, including all Ximen Nao's animal manifestations, wind up in the Ximen family cemetery.

Mo Yan is a pseudonym, apparently meaning "Don't speak". Through the voices of human and animal narrators in this novel, he has spoken volumes.

Great review Sassylassy, thanks!

Great review of Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out! I'll probably read it this month or in December.

I've started a thread for suggesting theme reads for 2013. Come on over!

Here's a link to the current Words without Borders issue on banned Chinese writers.

Great link and what an incredible list of books. Thanks.

Just finished Mao's Great Famine which I suspect will be the definitive English language work for sometime to come.

My thoughts on this book and lots of other people's reading for this quarterly theme are on the work page: http://www.librarything.com/topic/105514

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.

---

It was particularly timely to be reading this after reading SassyLassy's review of Mao's Great Famine. To Live gives a grass roots view, so to speak, of the period. We see the farmers enthusiastically breaking up their cooking pots after being told they will be fed at community kitchens. Then they happily join in the disastrous project to turn every collective farm into an iron foundry--even melting down their own farm implements to meet quotas. But the resulting famine, as horrible as it was, is blamed as much or more on a catastrophic drought as on Mao's misguided policies.

Incidentally, when I vacationed in China two years ago the tour guides in giving their capsule histories of the country consistently quoted the figure of 40 million dead as a result of the Great Leap Forward. They were also consistent in saying "The Late Chairman Mao was 60% right and 40% wrong."

Interesting review, Steven. I have Yu Hua's Brothers on the TBR, and hope to read it for this theme read. And the information about the Japanese occupation ties in with the book I'm currently reading, Red Sorghum by Mo Yan, the bulk of which happens during that period, although involving much poorer people.

I just finished this novel last week and was getting my thoughts together to post. I have to agree that it truly is an excellent work.

I think Fugui would have to blame the famine on drought as that was the established party line and he could not have known differently. There were droughts, but these were man made as a result of Mao's policies. Meteorologists now say there were no unusual droughts that covered the required landmass to have such a catastrophic effect.

Interesting to hear your 60/40 figure and see how this has changed. At the Lushan conference in 1959, Mao suggested that perhaps one finger wasn't as it should be, but that there were still nine left. At the 7000 Cadres Conference in 1962, Liu Shaoqi at great risk to himself suggested 70:30 for Mao. It will be interesting to follow this ratio over the years.

Steven, I am currently reading Mo Yan's, Big Breasts and Wide Hips. Mo Yan is quoted as saying, if you really want to know my writing, read BB & WH. So far, it is an impeccable, exquisite read! BALE

Thanks for the recommendation, Beth. I'm planning on reading all of Mo's novels over the next year, but I'm taking them in order of publication so Garlic Ballads will be next for me.

If author themed reads goes all French, maybe there could be a small Mo Yan read in this group, as quite a few people seem to be interested in reading him.

Another look at To Live



To Live by Yu Hua translated from the Chinese by Michael Berry
first published as Huozhe in 1992

When I was ten years younger than I am now, I had the carefree job of going to the countryside to collect popular folk songs. That year, for the entire summer, I was like a sparrow soaring recklessly. I would wander amid the village houses and open country, which was full of cicadas and flooded with sunlight.

So begins Yu Hua's novel on a note of hope and optimism, an almost idyllic note. The young narrator falls asleep under a tree. On waking, he spies an old man talking to his ox. Hoping to collect more tales, he strikes up a conversation which will take him back in time, to a different world.

The peasant Xu Fugui starts to tell his story. As a young man, the son of a landowner, he had an easy life in the early 1930s. However, Fugui had two vices: gambling and whores. Not only did he lose his inheritance this way, his father lost their property to a moneylender when he paid off Fugui's debt. Fugui tells this part of his story in a factual manner, not as a victim.

Reduced to peasant status and work, he was kidnapped by the Nationalists to fight in the war against Japan. Here he met another conscript Chunsheng, who will loom large in his later life. Escaping the Nationalists, he joined the People's Liberation Army and travelled back to his home village with them.

The world and the life he returns to he could never have imagined in his former carefree existence. He still has his wife Jiazhen, whom he married when a callow youth, and he still has his two children Fengxia and Youqing. Thanks to his gambling losses, he escapes being executed as the village landlord. This is basically the extent of his luck. Collectivization, the Great Leap Forward, the famine and the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution will all take an incredible toll on his family. So poor that his family has no heat, no shoes, no food and only a cloth to cover the eyes of the dead at burial, Fugui endures.

Fugui's narration is interrupted periodically as he takes a break, allowing the reader a respite too from the bleakness of his life. Each time, the folklorist brings us back to the present, describing the setting using words like "warmth", "tranquillity" and "peace" in stark contrast to Fugui's tale. Yet these are words which could also be used to describe Fugui himself. Despite it all, he has persevered and arrived at the point where there was a certain happiness in talking about his life and reliving it that way. He is able to see both the past and the present clearly and to be at ease with both.

This is the heart of the novel. Fugui endures to live, not in the trite western sense of to have a life, but in the far more basic sense of to survive, while at the same time maintaining that which makes us human. It also seemed to me that it was the land and people that would live, that no matter what happened to the country, the eternal peasant would always be there, working the land.

#78 - If we did Mo Yan in the Author Theme Reads group it would just be for one quarter because that's how that group is structured. I like the idea of doing it elsewhere to have more flexibility--either as a thread here in Reading Globally or by setting up a new group like the Patrick White Anniversary group with a separate discussion thread for each of his books. We could call it "Read Mo Yan!"

I am more for a separate read of Mo Yan as there are a lot of other writers I would rather read in Author Theme Reads. Maybe we could do it in Club Read if we don't do it here or separately.

>80 StevenTX: and 81 I like your idea of having it like the Patrick White group. To read Mo Yan is glorious!

I've now finished Red Sorghum by Mo Yan, a harrowing read. Here is my review.

At 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."

I haven't really participated in this quarter's read at all - partly as I've fallen WAY behind in my own reading of other books I wanted to finish before the end of the year, partly due to there just not being enough hours in the day - but I just wanted to say how fascinating many of the books posted about here sound to me.

I know nothing at all of Chinese literature as yet, but the books of Mo Yan and Yu Hua sound so good I've had to add some to the TBR mountain. Now I'm off to my library's website to check what they have...

Serve the People! by Yan Lianke
First published in Chinese 2005.
English translation by Julia Lovell 2007.

 

Wu Dawang has made a successful career for himself in the People's Liberation Army by remembering the Army's three most important rules: Don't say what you shouldn't say, Don't ask what you shouldn't ask, Don't do what you shouldn't do. He also knows that to serve the Army is to Serve the People. Promoted to Sergeant of the Catering Squad, he has now been assigned as personal orderly to the Division Commander. To serve the Division Commander is to Serve the People, so he joyfully and diligently tends the Division Commander's garden, cleans the Division Commander's house, and prepare's meals for the Division Commander and his wife. And when the Division Commander is absent for weeks at a time, his superiors remind Wu that to serve the Division Commander's wife is to Serve the People.

But the Division Commander's wife, the young, beautiful, neglected, bored and lonely Liu Lian, wants to be served in a manner that shocks poor Wu Dawang. At first he refuses, but a bit of pressure from Liu Lian convinces Wu that his Army career is at stake. Before long the two are enjoying a passionate secret romance straight out of the pages of Lady Chatterley's Lover.

Serve the People satirizes the institutions and propaganda of Mao's China, showing that behind all the patriotic slogans the Chinese are no different than anyone else. Everyone wants a little more than he has. The soldiers want to be officers, the officers want promotions, the farmers want jobs in the cities, the low-ranking officials want to be high-ranking officials, and behind every ambitious man is a wife who wants better food and nicer clothes. The dedication to Mao and the slogans of self-sacrifice are a game everyone plays to get ahead but no one eventually believes in.

This is an enjoyable, bittersweet romance. Notwithstanding the satirical purpose of the work, the characters are believable, and their volatile relationship offers scenes that are insightful, moving, and heartrending.

Great reviews! Rebeccanyc, now I am really anxious to try Red Sorghum
I haven't gotten to this region as quickly as I planned, due to other reading that is slower than I thought, but have just started the Crazed and am really liking it so far.

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.

Earlier in this thread SassyLassy brought up the possibility of doing a continual group read of Mo Yan's work past the end of this quarter. Others including myself were eager to do so as well, the question being only where to host it. This discussion got taken up recently in the Author Theme Reads group (along with a similar proposal for a 100th anniversary celebration of Albert Camus). I'm "reporting back" from that group to this one, since this is were the idea originated.

The consensus appears to be that we should start a new group dedicated to Mo Yan (modeled after the Patrick White group among others). Naturally I would prefer that we not pull Mo Yan out of this discussion thread until the end of the quarter, but we can create and advertise the group at any time.

Sassy, since you made the original suggestion, you should have dibs on creating and managing the group if you would like to do so. If not, I will be happy to do so. Rebecca might also be willing to add it to her portfolio.

I hope this accurately reflects our prior discussions and is agreeable to all.

Not me! I have too much on my plate with getting the Reading Globally theme reads for next year set up (leaders/hosts still needed) and then setting up Club Read 2013!

Steven, rebecca got to me with another offer, just before your generous one! Given that and the terrific work you and wandering_star did on the 4th quarter, I am delighted with your second suggestion that you could create and manage a Mo Yan group. I do agree that discussion should start after this quarter, but as you say, you can create and advertise any time. That also gives people time to get some of his books.

Seriously, thanks for taking it on. 2013 looks like a huge reading year (a good thing).

Okay, Read Mo Yan is now set up and open for business (and I have gained a new appreciation for all the work Rebecca has done in creating the Reading Globally and Club Read group pages).

Everyone is welcome to come on over and begin posting your Mo Yan reviews and resource links, and start discussing any group reads you would like to pursue. But don't forget to keep posting all your China+neighbors-related reviews and discussion here in this Reading Globally thread as well through the end of the quarter.

steven, joined and thanks!

Likewise. Perhaps the Mo Yan group could also watch some of the films of his work - Red Sorghum and To Live were both made into films by Zhang Yimou.

Separately, I liked this photo essay on architecture in China and Hong Kong, which gives a good glimpse of the very different lives that are being lived there: http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2012/11/chinese-architecture-old-and-new/1004...

Thanks for the Mo Yan group, Steven!

Yes, thanks. I have joined as well. I started reading Change and like it very well so far. He is funny!

Also, I finished the Crazed by Ha Jin. The protagonist, Jian, is a literature student who helps care for his professor, Professor Yang, who suffers a stroke in 1989. Jian is close to Yang, and is even engaged to Yang's annoying daughter MeiMei. Yangs post-stroke ravings make Jian question his direction in life and his place in Chinese society. The story slowly unfolds, and loops around itself with Tiannemem Square in the background.
Ha Jin's writing style is easy to read and compelling. I plan to read more by this writer.

I have finished Change by Mo Yan. I really liked it. It's a short memoir, with background on what it's like to live in China under communism, with emphasis on the educational system. He's funny, colloquial. The book seems completely random when you start reading it, but by the end I realized it was highly structured.

After reading this, and The Crazed, I realized that to read modern Chinese literature, I need a better grounding in Chinese poetry. So now I am reading The Anchor Book of Chinese Poetry . It's good, but now I realize I need some background in Chinese history as well! The book actually gives a lot of historical background; but I think I need more.
Does anyone have a basic book on Chinese history that they could recommend?

#96:

For a good basic history with lots of emphasis on Chinese culture I recommend The Cambridge Illustrated History of China by Patricia Buckley Ebrey. It is much better written than your typical illustrated history and is fairly up to date.

For more detail, China: A New History by John King Fairbank is also quite good and very current, but it focuses on economic and political history with very little about cultural developments.

China's Imperial Past by Charles Hucker gives a very systematic approach to China's cultural history, so if you wanted to read just the sections about poetry this would be an excellent resource. But it is decades out of date now.

>96 banjo123: The Crazed is an excellent book and I hope you do get to read more by this author. I keep recommending War Trash everywhere I can. It is another excellent book by him, as is just about everything I have read of his.

In addition to steven's recommendations, in terms of basic books on Chinese history, it is so vast a subject that you may initially want to focus in on just one era. If, for example, you are reading modern Chinese fiction, there are many works on just twentieth century China. For general straightforward reading, Jonathan Spence has many books on different eras of China, and there may be one that suits a period you are interested in. For more academic reading, in the US, university presses such as California and Yale have lots of excellent books.

SassyLassy and Steven, thanks so much for the recommendations. That should keep me out of trouble!

I will look for War Trash, though I was planning to read Waiting next.

I loved The Crazed, War Trash and Waiting.

I haven't read anything for this theme so far, despite having at least a dozen books that I was hoping to get to. I'll read Shifu, You'll Do Anything for a Laugh by Mo Yan this month, and spend the first quarter or half of next year reading those books. Is anyone else thinking of doing the same?

I am also thinking that my reading on China may extend a couple of months more. That's one reason I am happy about the Mo Yan group.

I will definitely be continuing on with this reading in 2013.

The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck

This is a family legacy book, a personal saga, a chronicle of the life and times of the main man Wang Lung. We follow his life in early 20th C China from the start of manhood, and his acquisition of a wife, to his last days.

The times are hard, and intense, and even though big things are happening socially and politically, the book sees these changes thorough the eyes of Wang Lung. That is to say we dont see or hear about them unless they directly affect his life. This is as it would be when your primary goal is the survival of your family.

This book was so good. So much happens yet the words are not crammed in. We are left with an impression of a man and his times that is so comprehensive. The pride and strength of Wang Lung are obvious, yet he also struggles with the ugly side of pride. His lifelong search for contentment is in vain which raises the question of how much does one need to feel happy. The tale is one of human nature, and in this regard it does a superb job of laying it out like it is. 1/2

This is deliberately vague as to plot, as otherwise there would be too many opportunities for spoilers. A note from the translators indicates this is not an abridged version.



Brothers by Yu Hua translated from the Chinese by Eileen Cheng-yin Chow and Carlos Rojas
first published in two volumes in 2005 and 2006 as Xiong Di


When Baldy Li and Song Gang were seven and eight years old, they became brothers. Technically, they became step-brothers, but for the two boys it was true brotherhood. Two more different boys it would be hard to find, yet their bond was unbreakable.

At first, life was good in the newly formed household. Song Fanping, Song Gang's father, was a middle school teacher with a comfortable house. Although Baldy's mother Li Lan worked at the silk factory, she and Baldy Li had been objects of derision in Liu Town since the night her first husband drowned in the public latrine while spying on women. Marrying Song Fanping gave her the promise of a new life.

Brothers was originally published in China in two volumes, brought together in this English edition. The first part of the book juxtaposes the story of the two boys agains the horrors of the Cultural Revolution. Much of their life is similar to that of small boys everywhere, as they go to school, get beaten up by older boys and learn about their world. Slowly however, the Cultural Revolution creeps into their lives.

A year or two after the wedding, Li Lan went to Shanghai for medical treatment. At that time, the Cultural Revolution was just starting. While she was away, Song Fanping was arrested and imprisoned on the basis of a childlike remark of Baldy Li's about Chairman Mao, compounded by the fact that Song Fanping's father had been a land owner. At times the two boys, left on their own, were faced with starvation, but Song Gang would still prepare them each a bowl of water for dinner, to be flavoured with salt and soy sauce. Song Gang's selfless refrain of sacrifice "Even if I only have one bowl of rice left, I'll give it to Baldy Li to eat, and even if I only have a single piece of clothing, I'll give it to Baldy Li to wear", contrasts sharply with some of the most gruesome scenes of murder and suicide I've read.

Part II deals with an entirely different kind of cultural revolution: Deng Xiaoping's Reform and Opening Up Campaign. Materialism and capitalism sweep over the country as swiftly and efficiently as a marauding army. The citizens of Liu Town struggle to outdo each other in their efforts to become gloriously rich, culminating in the Inaugural National Virgin Beauty Contest. The madness of state sanctioned violence is gone, but extreme poverty still exists, made worse if possible by the contrast with burgeoning wealth. The brothers follow their own paths, one to devastating poverty and one to fantastic wealth. Deep down, however, the bond remains.

Although dealing with some of the same subject matter, this book was a real departure from the earlier To Live (79 above). In Brothers, Yu uses humour, parody, ridicule and satire to impale the mores of modern China, a country which actually hosted a Miss Artificial Beauty pageant. Throughout the book he has a coterie of locals such as Blacksmith Tong and Yanker Yu, who must constantly work out which way to jump. Although they are part of the humour, they also work to keep the book grounded in Liu Town with the two boys as part of a community. At first I found some of the more extreme examples somewhat off. In the end though, I was carried away by the larger story of two brothers and their dedication to each other. I found myself agreeing with another favourite author, A L Kennedy who said

Humour is a perfectly legitimate response to the horror of the world.

Edited to correct reference number

Re: Brothers: A Novel by Yu Hua, as I commented on your Club Read thread the idea of having to "constantly work out which way to jump" is a common theme in modern Chinese literature. Very few countries have ever gone through such frequent and drastic shifts of the political winds as China, with severe consequences for facing the wrong direction at the wrong time even if only by chance. The perfect example is in Yu Hua's earlier novel, To Live, where a man loses his family estate in a card game, thereby inadvertently saving his life while the winner is executed for being a landlord.

I finished The Rape of Nanking, by Iris Change (Review on 75ers thread). It was a bit too brutal for me, and I felt that Chang was too emotionally involved to write a completely reliable history of the subject, but it was a very engaging narrative and I learned a lot.

Now I'm wanting to read a book full of nice likable Japanese people (after reading this and Garden of the Evening Mists).

I agree that reading The Rape of Nanking is devastating, but few people have argued with Chang's documentation. I can't imagine doing that research and writing the book without getting involved with the subject. It was so difficult for Chang personally that she ultimately committed suicide in 2004, while working on a book about another brutal event, the Bataan death march.

106 and 107 -- Wow! Iris Chang sounds amazingly intense--how sad that she committed suicide. Being a writer isn't usually quite that dangerous.
I have wish-listed the book, as I am wanting to read more about Japan's role in WWII, but it may be a while before I feel up to it.

SassyLassy, did Chang end up finishing the book on the Bataan death march?

And for something different, this poem, written by Wang Wei (701 - 761) resonates with me:

When young I knew only the surface of things
and studied eagerly for fame and power
I heard tales of marvelous years on horseback
and suffered from being no wiser than others.
Honestly, I didn't rely on empty words;
Cousin, like Huilan your taste is pure.
I tried several official posts.
But to be a clerk---always fearing punishment
for going against the times--is joyless.
In clear winter I see remote mountains
with dark green frozen in drifted snow.
Bright peaks beyond the eastern forest
tell me to abandon this world.
You once talked of living beyond mere dust.
I saw no rush to take your hand and go--
but how the years have thundered away.

>107 SassyLassy: she ultimately committed suicide in 2004, while working on a book about another brutal event
Wow, that is terribly sad. But, I suppose, not altogether surprising. How hideous to be surrounded with all that terror.

>108 banjo123: Unfortunately, it doesn't appear that she did finish it.

>109 banjo123: Wonderful poem. Things never seem to change much in the Chinese bureaucracy!

Here is a brief review of a short story from the April short stories challenge that it reminded me of, although a later era

The Great Wall by Ismail Kadare, translated from Albanian to French by Jusuf Vrioni, then to English by David Bellos in Granta 91:Wish You Were Here

A Chinese inspector posted to the northern section of the Great Wall contemplates directives from the capital to repair the wall yet again in preparation for a possible barbarian invasion. On the other side, the Nomad Kutluk is scouting the wall on the orders of his commander, whom we learn is actually Tamerlane. A meditation on fear, the walls that divide and enclose us, and the ultimate wall between life and death, sprinkled with a few good barbs at officialdom, this story was also interesting given the ties that existed between Albania and the People's Republic.

> 111 - Sounds like a fascinating short story.

There was an article in today's paper talking about how Mo Yan has been criticized for supporting censorship and for being a Communist Party member. Did anyone else read about this, and what did you think?

>112 banjo123: Yesterday's Toronto Globe and Mail had an article about an interview with Liu Xia, who is under house arrest as the wife of imprisoned Nobel peace prize winner Liu Xiaobo. The article says that while most Chinese do not know Liu won the Nobel prize, Mr Mo, a writer with long ties to the Communist Party establishment, has been feted as a hero in the country's state controlled media.

There are links to articles about Mo Yan and the prize on the Mo Yan page: http://www.librarything.com/topic/145272

ETA Forgot to add that Mo said he saw no problem at all with this "selective censorship"

An Empty Room by Mu Xin

An Empty Room is a collection of short stories, which Mu Xin selected from several of his works to be translated into English for this collection. If there is a common thread to them, it seems to be about traces - the traces that we leave behind us, and the traces of people's inner selves that come through in everyday interaction and make us feel we understand the people that we know.

Most of the stories are what I think of as the 'traditional' kind of short story, ie they are about a moment or an epiphany rather than a full narrative arc. Personally I prefer stories where things actually happen, but there are many images that will stay in my mind - the loss of a treasured possession in The Moment Childhood Vanished, a room full of discarded love letters in An Empty Room (my favourite story), and above all, the powerful and vivid image at the end of Halo.

Halo is hardly even a story but starts off as a long discussion of the different depictions of halos in Eastern and Western art. I was wondering what on earth the point was, when one of the speakers starts to tell the story of a time when he had a halo. During the Cultural Revolution he spent time in a crowded prison cell. The prisoners who have been in the cell the longest have the privilege of sitting against the walls, so that they have something to lean on. Each has their own spot - and the sweat and oil from their heads has created a patch on the wall behind them. The circles were exactly like the dignified light of Buddha portrayed in ancient art. Not only that, each new prisoner had to have his head shaved. Our arms were bared as it was the peak of summer, and we sat with legs folded. Our posture, the hazy circles, the shaved heads formed eighteen arhat profiles, no more, no less.

Unlike books written for non-Chinese audiences, there are traces here of the censorship which means that certain events cannot be referred to directly. In Halo, the prison service is explained like this: "In the second half of the twentieth century, certain events akin to religious persecution of heretics occurred in a certain country. I wasn't exactly a heretic, but certain details of a sculpture of mine were used against me." Fong Fong No. 4, a story about a woman who the narrator knows at four different stages of her life, contains the lines: After I returned home, our correspondence gradually became less frequent. Her letters then began to arrive from Anhui Province where she had been sent to do farm work. - a reference to the mass sending of urban youth to the countryside towards the end of the Cultural Revolution.

I'm really enjoying reading all the wonderful reviews of the fiction writing for this challenge. But, for the last year my reading has been more non-fiction than fiction, and for the last three months everything I've taken off my shelves (with the exception of those forced on me by my reading clubs) has been non-fiction. I have many, many books available in fiction for this challenge, but have started two non-fiction books instead: Red Azalea by Anchee Min and Silent Tears by Kay Bratt. I'll be back to give you some information on them when they're finished.

115 > I will be interested to see who you like Red Azalea. I started it a few years ago, but it was so tough (emotionally) that I didn't get very far. I was thinking about picking it up again now that I have done some reading on communist china for background, but it looks like I gave the book away.

Good segue... here's some non-fiction/memoir:

'Socialism Is Great!': a worker's memoir of the new China by Lijia Zhang

This is a tale of growing up in China in the 1970s and 1980s. Lijia is a tomboyish child but also a good student, when at the age of fifteen she has to take up her mother's job in a rocket factory. We follow her life through the next ten years or so, as she studies, makes friends, starts to encounter young men, and continues to strive for a more interesting life.

Zhang is a fun and engaging personality, but the thing that makes this book interesting is that it's a real 'ant's eye view' of a time when China was starting to unfreeze and kicking off the process of tremendous change. We see the first private entrepreneurs tentatively setting up businesses, from kebab stalls to hair salons, and the impact that this has on daily life. A trickle of foreign films and novels becomes available. More and more Chinese start to study English and become familiar with ideas from outside China.

This is not high politics or literature, but it's a quick read and an interesting perspective. Frustratingly, it ends just after Zhang has been interrogated by the police for her involvement in a protest supporting the students in Tiananmen Square. The acknowledgements and book cover reveal that she spent some time in the UK, was married to a man with a Scottish name, and now lives with two children in Beijing - it would have been nice to have had at least a quick summary of how that all came about.

Suddenly, he started to stammer. 'Do you think there's a chance, chance, we could develop our friendship further?' My first proposal!? But it failed to thrill. Liu was a nice guy and good to me, yet I found him priggish and wet. I had high ideals for my would-be boyfriend, doubtless due to the foreign films I devoured. He had to be handsome, and highly intelligent, with a great vision for life, and a romantic with little regard for the number of wontons in his bowl.

Chronicle of a Blood Merchant by Yu Hua, translated from the Chinese by Andrew F Jones
first published as Xu Sanguan mai xue ji in 1996

Xu Sanguan first sold his blood as a young man in his twenties, before he was married. It was done almost as a lark, with two friends. His friends instructed him in the finer points beforehand: how to drink lots of water first to increase the amount of blood, not to pee the water out, what to take the blood chief as a present, and the importance of eating pork livers and warmed rice wine afterwards to replenish the system. Xu Sanguan intuitively realized that the money he received from blood was different from the wages he received from sweat. It couldn't be spent on anything ordinary.

Nine years passed after this lark. Xu was now married with three sons: Yile, Erle and Sanle, or First Joy, Second Joy and Third Joy. The problem was, people were whispering that Yile, his favourite and first born, did not look like Xu Sanguan. Yile must be He Xiaoyang's son.

At about that time, Yile got in a fight with Blacksmith Fang's son and beat him so badly that he was hospitalized in a coma. When Blacksmith Fang could no longer pay for his son's medicine, he came to Xu, as Yile's father, for money. Yu refused to pay, saying it was He Xiaoyang's obligation. He naturally refused. So began a seesaw battle between the families over who was Yile's father, a battle that will not be resolved till the end of the book.

Blacksmith Fang seized Xu's household goods in payment for the medical bills. Left with only their rice bowls, Xu's family was devastated. The occasion warranted special action, so once again Xu sold his blood to buy back the household goods from Blacksmith Fang.

Up until now, life had been manageable for the family. Both Xu and his wife were employed, the boys were in school and everyone was healthy. Then began the Great Leap Forward. Xu's factory went from producing silk to producing pig iron. Kitchens were collectivized and quickly ran out of food. After fifty-seven straight days of eating watery corn gruel, Xu Sanguan decided his family need a real meal.

It was thus that Xu Sanguan arrived at the hospital and found himself facing Blood Chief Li. And he thought to himself, Everyone in town is gray with hunger, but Blood Chief Li still has ruddy cheeks. Everyone in town has lost weight, but Blood Chief Li's face is as fleshy as ever. Everyone in town is always scowling, but Blood Chief Li has a big smile on his face.

Things will only get worse for the family as the famine gives way to the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. Xu will be forced to sell his blood more and more often. Blood Chief Li finally refused to take it, but in a misguided attempt at helping Xu, suggested he could get around the three month interval rule by going to other collection clinics where he would be unknown. Xu took up this suggestion on his harrowing trip to Shanghai to see Yile, who was hospitalized there and close to death.

Chronicle of a Blood Merchant reads almost like a script. Instead of "Xu said", it might say "Xu Sanguan said to Yile". Xu's wife, Xu Yulan, frequently sits on their doorstep, wailing and declaiming to all who will listen in ever more polished performances. Xu Sanguan's description of making dinner in a game he plays with his hungry boys are not only highly visual, but incorporate directions on what to do. It is as if Yu Hua is turning the widespread use of revolutionary plays and operas around, in order to give his own commentary and criticism on life. His commentary comes to a natural end with his trip to Shanghai. I felt it would have been an excellent novel had it ended there. Instead, there is one more anticlimactic chapter which gave the impression it had been tacked on, possibly to get the book approved and published.

This is the third book I have read by Yu Hua in a month. While each differed widely in style, hunger and the Chinese medical system feature prominently in each. Chronicle of a Blood Merchant, published in 1996, four years after To Live, revisits some of the events in that novel and expands upon others. Blood is central to both, but Chronicle also incorporates the ideas of blood lines and blood money. Both novels deal with the lives of ordinary Chinese, and together with the first part of Brothers, present very human tales of ordinary people living in extraordinarily difficult times.

Waiting by Ha Jin
SassyLassy already has an excellent review of this book on post #62. I will try to avoid duplicating that review--I just have a few additional thoughts.
I am super-impressed with Ha Jin's writing. He has great character development. It's amazing to realize that he writes in English, but didn't learn English until he was an adult.
The protagonist of this book, Lin Kong, is notable for his passivity and very low sex drive. The book explores the conflict between individual desire and collective need. Lin Kong marries against his wishes at his parent's insistence, so that his wife can care for his aging parents. Then he drifts into a relationship with another woman, Manna Wu. He is tempted, after a few years, to end this relationship, but continues it because of social pressures and a desire not to disappoint Manna. Lin Kong is, in many ways, kind and thoughtful to both women. However, he is also passionless and ambivalent.
The focus of sublimating individual needs to the social good may reflect Chinese culture. On the other hand, I think that Lin's passivity is individual rather than cultural. Other characters don't have problems with being assertive. Lin's inability to be really 'in-love' seems personal as well -- his daughter doesn't have any trouble with falling head over heels.
Perhaps the highly restrictive cultural environment reinforces Lin's natural tendency to be rule-following and to lack passion. It was super-weird that at their wedding, the bride and groom bowed three times to Mao Tse Zung!

I found this interview with Ha Jin, which I thought was interesting:

I've been thinking of reading one or more of the multivolume Chinese epics, such as Journey to the West, Dream of the Red Chamber, and Outlaws of the Marsh. I already have Monkey, which is an abridged version of Journey to the West, and an abridged version of Dream of the Red Chamber, both dating to my college years when I took a course in Chinese culture (everything I learned is long forgotten, I hasten to say). So my questions for those of you who have read these are: Which would be the best one to start with? Do you have any recommendations? Does it make any sense at all to re-read the abridged versions to see if I like them, or should I just go for the full-length works (my inclination)?

Obviously, I would read these over time and mix up other works with them!

#120 - I've read the three works you mentioned, as well as Romance of the Three Kingdoms, all unabridged and within the last three years. They are all worth reading.

Romance of the Three Kingdoms is the most significant from an historical point of view. I've run across references to it in Japanese as well as Chinese literature, and Mao Zedong is said to have drawn more inspiration from it than from reading Karl Marx. It's the most challenging to read, however, because of the huge number of characters and the confusing political situation. I read an older translation by C. H. Brewitt-Taylor that used Wade Giles. I would definitely advise finding a newer edition that used Pinyin.

Outlaws of the Marsh was my favorite of the four. It's a great adventure story that also gives you a look at the lives, customs and attitudes of the time. I read the translation by Sidney Shapiro, and would recommend it.

Journey to the West was probably my least favorite of the four, though that's not to say I didn't enjoy it. It's the furthest removed from reality and does get a bit repetitious. If you're going to read an abridgment, this would be the one, though I would still recommend the full translation by W. J. F. Jenner.

Dream of the Red Chamber (or Story of the Stone) is a completely different type of novel, more modern and intimate with characters who are real people rather than epic heroes. Cao Xueqin died leaving the novel unfinished, and there were multiple manuscript copies in circulation, so there is no such thing as a "definitive" edition. I read the 5-volume Penguin edition with the ending supplied by Cao's contemporary Gao E, and I highly recommend it. There is a wedding scene that is the most emotionally powerful thing I have ever read.

I hope this helps.

Incredible reading steven.

Like rebecca, I've read abridged versions of these some time ago. This past quarter in Reading Globally has made me think I should revisit them in more detail, especially Romance of the Three Kingdoms and Dream of the Red Chamber. It seems the full versions are more readily available now and that's where I will jump in.

>119 banjo123: Thanks for the comments. I just read the interview in your link and Ha Jin's comments Be patient. Patience is everything. reminded me of an interpreter in China who kept admonishing me Patience is a virtue in a big character kind of way. Some would think that patience and waiting have a lot in common.

Thanks, Steven. I actually own Outlaws of the Marsh, as I bought it after your enthusiastic review earlier this year(?). So I'll start with that.

I've done some research on Amazon, and found an edition of Journey to the West translated by Anthony Yu as well as the one translated by Jenner. One reviewer said that Jenner's translation was more idiomatic for an English reader, while Yu's was more faithful to the original. Hmm. Hard to decide, although Jenner's is a lot less expensive!

The edition of Dream of the Red Chamber I found is the Penguin edition, with three volumes translated by David Hawkes and two by John Minford.

Will work my way up to Romance of the Three Kingdoms!

I didn't realize until now that I was reading a book suitable for this theme, so I'm showing up late for the party. I'm on page 101 of Wild Swans, by Jung Chang. I'm not sure if I'm going to make it to page 650 if the relentless brutality or just plain nastiness doesn't let up a little. But I'm learning a lot about Chinese history. This is a memoir, but for some reason it's on the 1001 Books list (which is supposed to be literature).

Wild Swans was a real eye-opener for me. I hope you are able to finish it . . .

I finished Silent Tears, A Journey of Hope in a Chinese Orphanage, a memoir about the four years the author spent in China and her affiliation with a local orphanage. Although the book gives glimpses of local Chinese life and how the author's family handles the culture differences and language barrier, it's the orphans lives which you are most privy to. During her time in China the author goes from being a once-a-week volunteer to organizing the volunteers, raising money for the orphanage and for surgeries for many of the children, and becoming an advocate on behalf of several of the children and on behalf of prospective foreign parents for children. I very much appreciated the letters included at the end of the book which tell you what happened to some of the adopted children you had known from the orphanage.

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.