Some Fun Stories

I enjoy reading modern books from China. I read Ha Jin, Yan Lianke, Yu Hua, and Mo Yan frequently. Whereas some of these authors, like Yan Lianke, write long allegories set in China's China's recent troubled past, others claim to show China's new, capitalist-loving culture. I read an old review for Zhu Wen's "I Love Dollars" and decided to give it a go. The review, like the publisher, claimed that "I Love Dollars" fell in the later category of exposing this new, outrageous, and absurd world in China.

The book collects six short stories. The premises of many of the stories shine. For example, in the title story, a struggling writer's father visits him in town. The father and son spend the day trying to find suitable prostitutes. Unfortunately, I felt the story got bogged down in repetition and monotony. The story "Hospital Night," about a possible son-in-law taking care of us his girlfriend's father, had moments of comedy, but suffered from the same monotony. "A Boat Crossing" was a rambling story about a man trying to get upriver and the many strange people he meets. Unfortunately, the ending did not satisfy because none of the strange people were ever explained.

A reader looking for a collection of short stories about absurdity in modern China might do better with "Shifu, You'll Do Anything for a Laugh" by Mo Yan. Although Mo Yan's stories frequently end abruptly as well, I felt that they were quicker and more descriptive, and the title story follows a similar theme as Zhu Wen's: prostitution and making money in modern China. While not short stories, Yan Lianke's books - any of them really - offer more profound historical and societal insights. ( )

I Love Dollars And Other Stories of China by Zhu Wen provides insight into the changes occurring in Chinese society amidst rapid economic growth. This collection of novellas written in the 1990s marks a departure in pre-Tiananmen Square Chinese literature which focused criticisms on the government and the everyday inefficiencies and corruptions of various bureaucracies. As China has embraced capitalism, the resultant impacts on Chinese society have upended traditional relationships, while post – Tiananmen Chinese literature has become less overtly political. Despite this, a new generation of authors have found plenty to criticize as China’s changes and the resultant literature reflect a society ill at ease with its growing pains.

Zhu Wen pens absurdist stories detailing drifting lives as they interact with a new China. I Love Dollars upends the traditional idea of filial piety as a son tries to solicit sex for his father as they indulge their appetites around a city. Everything is commodified, and money is worshiped as the only end worth having. Devoid of meaningful relationships, the son drifts through life un-anchored and unable to grasp the values of his father. Other stories highlight the randomness of life in China as Zhu Wen’s narrators, single men, constantly encounter characters who burden them with stories and problems. These portrayals, in A Boat Crossing and A Hospital Night again highlight disruption and confusion, while a seething anger and violence also lurks about in Wheels.

Beginning with a satiric paean to money, I Love Dollars And Other Stories is incredibly humorous. The bizarre situations and lucid writing displays an original voice. The success of China is often portrayed as a rosy story with little attention paid to Chinese voices and their personal reflections on their society. The inevitable backlash at the complete upheaval in Chinese society has noten addressed especially as China has shifted its weight on the world stage. As the machine of the Chinese economy grinds on, it is useful to remember the variety of voices in the country. As the world addresses China, realize that there isn’t one Chinese voice, but several, and the best place to measure them are in the artists reflecting changes in their society.

Originally from my blog:
http://poetsandpolicymakers.com/ ( )

Hell yeah! This was great modern Chinese literature. I Love Dollars is a book of short novellas and a couple of short stories. Wen’s characters live in the new dollar-driven China being bounced around through random chance encounters and events while seeking pleasure and kicking aside the decaying rubbish of the Maoist repression era. His characters are cynical, not too endearing, and generally have a ‘fuck all’ attitude but will bend down and pet the puppy just enough to elicit a bit of sympathy for their plight. Wen’s voice is unique; a loosely punctuated first-person narrative in which speech runs on within sentences of descriptive prose. Wen wrote these novellas during the beginning of China’s economic liberalization where anything could be set on paper that would sell and make money… anything that didn’t touch on politics. As Deng Xiaoping said, “It doesn’t matter whether a cat is black or white, so long as it catches mice, it’s a good cat”.

I Love Dollars is probably the weakest story in this collection. A Hospital Night, A Boat Crossing, Wheels and Pounds, Ounces, Meat are the best of the book.

From the beginning of Pounds, Ounces, Meat:

On the bridge by the old Drum Tower I was stopped by a shabby individual, clearly someone who’d wandered in from out of town, with a black bag tucked under his arm and an unnerving gleam in his eyes. He told me my physiognomy was most unusual; he simply had to tell my fortune, he wouldn’t charge a cent. The plastic on top of the bridge had melted tackily in the sun: crossing felt like walking over spat-out chewing gum, or smoker’s phlegm, or snot, or semen, or fresh dog shit. I include these comparisons purely to illuminate, not disgust, you understand. If I were to suggest you imagine it was raw meat underfoot, now that, I admit, would be nauseating. Fuck off, I told him as impatiently as I could manage.

Briefly, all too briefly, the man was transfixed by shock, too transfixed to manage any kind of response, till I’d reached the end of the bridge’s elevation and was about to set off down the steps on the other side. Good luck’s coming your way this year! He screeched vengefully at me across the asphalt. About fucking time, I muttered to myself as I descended. When I was halfway down, I happened to look up and see a girl with a healthily tanned face coming toward me up the steps, carrying a black parasol and a copy of I Love Dollars. My heart began to pound. I wasn’t sure, at that moment, whether this counted as my good luck or not. In subsequent weeks and months, I often thought back over this scene, about this girl and that book, about how she kept the latter pressed beguilingly up against her chest, blinding me to its obvious flatness. ( )

Rolig! Lite efterlängtad kritik av marknadsreformerna!