Agony, ecstasy of China's gold rush

Translated recently from Chinese by historian Julia Lovell, this book’s back cover carries a pat from none less than eminent historian and China watcher Jonathan Spence: “an absorbing portrait of the go-go years in China...extravagantly funny.” The catchy “I Love Dollars” title and the front cover adorned by black and white shots of a laughing man carry another small heap of praise — “Brilliant...fresh and very funny,” says The Seattle Times. The twist, however, is that the book is not quite funny, in the way you and I would think. This collection of author Zhu Wen’s edgy short stories has a gloomy, dark pallor and is imbued with strong doses of vitriolic black humour.

Electrical engineer-turned-author Zhu wrote novellas in the 1990s — his stories centring around China’s transition blues, the unsettling unease and angst.

Zhu, who has acknowledged having been influenced by Borges and Kafka, catapulted to literary fame with the  novella, Wo Ai Meiyuan, translated as “I Love Dollars”, which was published in 1994. The story itself is peculiar and  particularly morbid — that of a sex-obsessed son in search of a prostitute to entertain his father who comes visiting. This was the author’s own  portrait of a new post-socialist China where lust and libido, individualism and commercialism ruled the roost. For the son searching out kicks for money, Confucian analects or even Communism were distant and mattered little. Agree with the intensely cynical tone or not, Wo Ai Meiyuan established Zhu as an author of extraordinary courage, with an anti-establishment mind map clearly his own. In fact Zhu and many others — referred to as to as the “ New Generation” — did not hesitate to  critically write on the social upheavals of the market onslaught.

All the stories in this slim volume are of and about China in the market, of nameless, faceless people and places — urban and small town provincial caught in the whirlpool of change. The stories border on the bizarre and even surreal, and capture an unmistakable sense of vacuum. They reflect on different facets: while “I Love Dollars” is an ode to materialism, “Wheels” captures the seamy mafiosi of small towns; “A Hospital Night” traces a man’s personal predicament as he stands in for his girlfriend at a hospital where her father is admitted; “A Boat Crossing” is on a man’s journey and his peculiar cabin mates; “ Pounds Ounces, Meat” details petty cheats and petty grievances ; and “Ah Xiao Xie” touches upon homosexuality and despair in a small state-owned factory.

The colloquial narrative is easy reading, but Zhu’s take on deconstructing the impact of reforms on society is as avant garde as it can get. It is this which makes it an uneasy read — but an acquired taste all the same. What almost overshadows the stories is an outstanding lyrical afterword by the translator Lovell, who has succinctly summed up the literary scene of the 1990s.

I LOVE DOLLARS
AND OTHER STORIES OF CHINA

Zhu Wen
Penguin New York, 2008
Prices $14; Pages 240