possible way for China to be any better than it is today… Can China be controlled without a one-party dictatorship? Can any other system feed and clothe one billion, three hundred and fifty million people? Or successfully administer an ‘Action Plan for Achieving Prosperity amid Crisis’?… there
Chan Koonchung has himself felt the ambivalent pull of the contemporary “Chinese model.” The son of refugees from Maoist China, product of Hong Kong’s Anglicized education system, he is an unlikely sympathizer with authoritarian methods. “I grew up listening to the Beatles, watching French films, reading Camus, J. D. Salinger, Jane Austen, Agatha Christie, Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett,” he recalled. “My friends and I would have worn black polo-necks, but we couldn’t get hold of any in subtropical Hong Kong, so we had to make do with white T-shirts instead.” But the open-ended questions he scatters through the book express his own uncertain position vis-a-vis contemporary Chinese politics. “Between a good hell and a fake paradise-which one would
Both Chan Koonchung and his fictional namesake in
JULIA LOVELL, FEBRUARY 2011
A NOTE ON PRONUNCIATION
This book uses the
c = ts (
q = ch before i (
x = sh (
He in
LIST OF MAIN CHARACTERS
Lao Chen, the protagonist, a journalist and novelist with writer’s block
Fang Caodi, an erstwhile friend of his, who has led a globe-trotting, jack-of-all-trades life
Little Xi, another old friend of Lao Chen. Had a short-lived career as a lawyer, now has a marginal existence as an Internet political activist
Big Sister Song, her mother, the owner of the Five Flavors restaurant
Wei Guo, Little Xi’s son, a law student and ambitious Party member
Jian Lin, an acquaintance of Lao Chen, a wealthy real estate entrepreneur, and holder of cinema evenings
He Dongsheng, his cousin, a high-ranking government official
Zhang Dou, a former child slave-laborer, now an aspiring guitarist
Miaomiao, his girlfriend, formerly a journalist
Ban Cuntou, another cousin of Jian Lin, and once a classmate of Little Xi; now a highly influential figure in government circles
Wen Lan, a former girlfriend of Lao Chen; an international jetsetting political adviser
Dong Niang, a high-class prostitute
Zhuang Zizhong, an elderly editor of a literary journal
Hu Yan, an academic, member of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, expert on rural China
Gao Shengchan and Li Tiejun, organizers of an underground Protestant church, the Church of the Grain Fallen on the Ground, in Henan Province
Liu Xing, a former classmate of Gao Shengchan, and a local government official
County Head Yang, a young and ambitious local government official
Part One
1. TWO YEARS FROM NOW
Someone not seen in a long time
One whole month is missing. I mean one whole month of 2011 has disappeared, it’s gone, it can’t be found. Normally February follows January, March follows February, April follows March, and so on. But now after January it’s March, or after February it’s April… Do you understand what I’m saying-we’ve skipped a month!”
“Fang Caodi, just forget it,” I said. “Don’t go looking for it. It’s not worth it. Life’s too short; just look after yourself.”
No matter how clever I was, I could never change Fang Caodi. Then again, if you really wanted to search for a missing month, Fang Caodi would be the one to do it. In his life, he’d probably spent quite a few missing months just existing. He was always turning up unexpectedly in odd places like he had vanished for a million years and was