7 ms·

Modern China Is So Crazy It Needs a New Literary Genre

terrble 10y ago
Hey, look, no offense China.. but you ain't that crazy. Also... this has been going on in the US for decades.. and if you think China is ultra-unreal, AVOID Japan.
johnchristopher 10y ago
Interesting: the links at the bottom of the article doesn't work.
iliketosleep 10y ago
i don't know about a new genre, but modern china on it's current trajectory would be perfect material for an epic dystopian novel
- mac01021 10y ago
  You subscribe to the thesis that China's future is grim compared to it's present state? Or that it is a dystopia of epic proportions right now? If you care to elaborate, I am interested in your perspective.
  - iliketosleep 10y ago
    It’s in the process of materialising, the conditions are already set. Firstly, China’s "rise" came from cheap labour and the destruction of the environment. Labour is not so cheap anymore, and the environment is all but destroyed. But that’s okay, China’s already rich, right? Problem is the people are still poor, and much of the money already left the country. China’s GDP (PPP) per capita is less than that of Iraq, but the media and hence the masses are too fixated on national GDP to even notice (as times get tougher, this will change). Now that manufacturing is on the way out, where’s the money going to come from? The people still haven’t woken up but the party certainly has. They know there’s a ticking time-bomb of social unrest. Time to bring back Confucian ideology to maintain social order, and find an appropriate scapegoat for all the problems; western values (which they never even clearly defined). Enter the State Administration of Film, Radio and Television (广电总局) to ensure that all media, including movies and TV series, push this agenda, and the Social Credit System (社会信用体系) to ensure that your level of success in life is determined by how closely you follow the party line. People will not even dare joke about the party, let alone criticize it; too easy to get caught and too much to lose. Power will go unchecked at unprecedented levels and be enforced by technology. I could write a lot more, but these are just some of the reasons I think China's future is grim. I have lived in China for a few years and I've been seeing these changes happen before my eyes.
    - mac01021 10y ago
      Interesting... Thanks! What city were you in, out of curiosity?
      - iliketosleep 10y ago
        guangzhou
    - contingencies 10y ago
      Disagree. Been here 15 years, on and off. Current-era China is innovative, dynamic, real, and above all pragmatic. Politics are basically ignored and irrelevant to most people. China's future is bright, people here are one generation from poverty and can get by simply when necessary. No water? No power? No gasoline? No communications? No problem. People will get by, without grumbling too much, even in the cities. I've seen it with my own eyes. At a time when America and the EU both have little to say for themselves, belittling China's future is rather hypocritical. Remember, China was a self-sufficient economy less than a handful of decades ago, is massively investing in renewable energy and leads the world in things like electric vehicle adoption and mobile payment. Of course, it aint all sunshine, but its pretty warm regardless. (I'm based in Kunming)
- nabla9 10y ago
  China is just like Britain during industrialization, just multiple times larger scale and everything is happening faster. People often wonder why people move to cities to work in horrible conditions. They prefer city dystopia and constant calories to hunger. Real dystopia is happening in the Sahel Belt in Africa and Indian countryside and slums. Unhindered population growth just increases people who face food insecurity in these places.
cjslep 10y ago
I think the "crazy" aspect coming into play is an iteration of the world-shattering view that occurs when a child realizes his or her parents are just people, not infallible perfect protectors. This fundamentally changes the view of the world for a person because a fundamental truth is no longer true. This change can be viewed as "crazy" and reality becomes more chaotic in the new world view. I believe the same thing is happening right now in modern China. Simply substitute constituents and the oligarchy instead for the child and parent. When the citizens realize the infallible groupthink propaganda touted by the ruling class is in fact being touted by people inflicted with the human condition, they also experience a change in world view. Again, this change is "crazy" and more chaotic: A fundamental truth in their world view is no longer true. Remember, China favored building a society on Confucianism where society had a set order. There is no room for the chaos in a Confucian society. However, the less-promoted Dao De Jing was written in an attempt to perfectly capture the chaos, contradictions, and hypocrisies of reality. And in a way, applying its teachings to itself indicates it both succeeds and fails in doing so. The "ultra-unrealism" that the author keeps espousing seems to me a reaction for coming to grips to the mind-expanding change that comes when realizing a truth previously fundamental is no longer true. I am not trying to dismiss their feelings but am appreciating the personal growth. I hope others do too.
- coldtea 10y ago
  >I believe the same thing is happening right now in modern China. Simply substitute constituents and the oligarchy instead for the child and parent. Only ordinary Chinese citizens are not childlike and easily led at all (that's an early colonial misunderstanding) -- they are just as smart and street-wise as we are, and understand all the gritty details -- they always did.
  - cjslep 10y ago
    Thanks for pointing this out. It was not my intention to portray Chinese citizens as childlike. I simply meant to use the loss of childhood innocence as an example of how world views can be changed at a fundamental level. That kind of change can occur at any stage of life for anyone; childhood innocence tends to be the most relatable as an example across cultures. Another example was given to me by a coworker: after Fukushima, she realized that her employer ultimately did not care about her safety in a regional-paralyzing event. That shattered her world view about how she would be viewed as an object, not a person, by employers. This was despite all the women-in-tech, no-glass-ceiling, etc rhetoric. She vowed to take a new job where she would consider only employers that had demonstrated an active commitment to their employee's safety. It changed her world view about PR pieces put out by companies, especially with regards to diversity. Edit: To conclude, I personally believe there is an opportunity for personal growth about learning a healthy distrust in what government or politically-active people have to say in any country, including the USA, for everyone. Including myself. I truly did not mean to single out the Chinese in a degrading manner.
xamuel 10y ago
The author's examples of so-called ultra-unreal are not so new. Like there were no corrupt courtesans in olden days? Re: The Internet: It doesn't necessitate a new genre anymore than the invention of the telephone did. Good literature incorporates technology just where it's needed to move the plot along and it's all just window dressing over the basic proverbs and parables at the core.
coldtea 10y ago
So, some corrupt officials, a polygamist, a wanted official seeking asylum in a foreign consulate, and restaurants reusing cooking oil too much is an example of "unreality"? Where exactly did the author grew up in? Cushioned upper class life, or Disneyland? And those examples in a country with over a billion people? You can find all those examples in Africa, Asia, South America, etc. A lot of those are hardly uncommon in the West either, just in more "white collar" versions. Restaurants re-using cooking-oil? Tons of restaurant are closed every year for just that and worse hygienic offenses. Or we have some company like VW falsifying emissions data (and lately, it comes out that several other companies did), impacting the environment in a huge scale. Corrupt politicians? We have Presidents and PMs, senators and MPs openly retiring and joining the boards of companies they helped during their political career. Heck, in Mexico the mob abducted 140+ students, executed them all together, and for the country it was business as usual for the country. And those are examples or unreality? LOL.
- cooper12 10y ago
  You're doing no better by trivializing the author's purview. He doesn't live anywhere else you mentioned, he lives in China and in Tibet before that. That is the world he inhabits and that his writing reflects. Not to mention that problems are relative; you think an American balking at finding out their favorite restaurant was closed because of hygiene issues doesn't feel something comparable to a Chinese person who finds out their favorite street vendor used gutter oil? [0] Also in all of those Western examples you gave, China was much worse off. How can you say that China's situation isn't bad with a straight face? This is a country where the smug is so bad you can't see a few feet ahead of you. Where people who criticize the government can be made to disappear. Where the internet goes through a firewall [1] and is closed off from the rest of the world. [2] Sure, there are many countries worst off, but that doesn't mean we can completely overlook issues with our own countries. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gutter_oil https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gutter_oil [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Firewall https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Firewall [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Websites_blocked_in_mainland_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Websites_blocked_in_mainland_C...
  - 10y ago
mac01021 10y ago
Does anyone have a link to the original Chinese source of this article?
- LiweiZ 10y ago
  I'm not able to find the article in Chinese anywhere, either.
LiweiZ 10y ago
"chaohuan" perhaps means "超幻" in Chinese.
LiweiZ 10y ago
I only skimmed the article since reading familiar @#$% in Chinese context in another language made me feel sick. I think this guy is just like many other Chinese that want to make a claim on a global stage with little awareness of what the reality on that stage might be. They often coin a concept for China and claim its uniqueness and somewhat advancement. People are easy to make that kind of claim when all they can see are just raw observations, especially when they think they know what they observed.
- LiweiZ 10y ago
  OK, I finally found something related he wrote in Chinese "超幻时代的写作（宁肯）": http://www.bjwl.org.cn/wwwroot/bjzjw/publish/article/657/53058.shtml http://www.bjwl.org.cn/wwwroot/bjzjw/publish/article/657/530... From what I can guess, he is from the inside of the system "体制内". So most likely, someone in the system needs to do some more "theoretical" work to prove/claim the advancement of "us" (Chinese). That's it. Don't worry about what it actually delivers, it is way less related than we think. The only difference nowadays is that we can make those propaganda seen by westerners. Even on HN.
ZenoArrow 10y ago
Whilst I'm sure China has some 'ultra-unreal' situations, I don't think anything it can produce will top this one... 62 people have the same level of wealth as half the world's population. If you're talking ultra-unreal, nothing else is likely to come close to global inequality. http://www.oxfam.org.uk/media-centre/press-releases/2016/01/62-people-own-same-as-half-world-says-oxfam-inequality-report-davos-world-economic-forum http://www.oxfam.org.uk/media-centre/press-releases/2016/01/...
aab0 10y ago
I don't know about 'new'. I read Dos Passos's _U.S.A._ trilogy many years ago, and what I kept thinking in reading articles and essays about China's modernization over the past decades is, 'it's just like in Dos Passos!' Especially when you read about some Chinese businessman who has founded a dozen businesses none of which have anything to do with each other after starting as a beggar or something, I kept finding it an echo of the people in Passos. China is really in a similar stage as the USA was in the Gilded Age, right down to the muckrakers in Hong Kong and private security agencies.
tzakrajs 10y ago
Modern Chinese writer so crazy he invents new literary genre.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
labrador 10y ago
The astonishing thing is that China works as well as it does after the utter madness of the so-called "Great Leap Forward."
dreamszl 10y ago
Sorry but I really don't think "chaohuan" is a Chinese word. I don't like the author's writing style, use measures instead of the content to gain readers interest. Also I agree with some fact in the article, but it overemphasizes the bad side and neglect the good side. I agree the "Good fortune is that wherein disaster lurks", but I don't think we should stop progressing because of the afraid of the disters. There is also another Chinese saying "Righting a wrong must first Overcorrect", although it's saying overcorrect but I think it's saying all the cost of doing right. And the bad side can be seen by the public is because the Chinese government is doing something to deal with the bad things.
- dreamszl 10y ago
  And HN prefer to write a bad China, but as a Chinese citizen I think my life is becoming better and richer instead of worse. And mood and bias both have huge impact to make us misunderstanding the world.

Hey, look, no offense China.. but you ain't that crazy. Also... this has been going on in the US for decades.. and if you think China is ultra-unreal, AVOID Japan.

johnchristopher 10y ago

Interesting: the links at the bottom of the article doesn't work.

iliketosleep 10y ago

i don't know about a new genre, but modern china on it's current trajectory would be perfect material for an epic dystopian novel

mac01021 10y ago
You subscribe to the thesis that China's future is grim compared to it's present state? Or that it is a dystopia of epic proportions right now? If you care to elaborate, I am interested in your perspective.
- iliketosleep 10y ago
  It’s in the process of materialising, the conditions are already set. Firstly, China’s "rise" came from cheap labour and the destruction of the environment. Labour is not so cheap anymore, and the environment is all but destroyed. But that’s okay, China’s already rich, right? Problem is the people are still poor, and much of the money already left the country. China’s GDP (PPP) per capita is less than that of Iraq, but the media and hence the masses are too fixated on national GDP to even notice (as times get tougher, this will change). Now that manufacturing is on the way out, where’s the money going to come from? The people still haven’t woken up but the party certainly has. They know there’s a ticking time-bomb of social unrest. Time to bring back Confucian ideology to maintain social order, and find an appropriate scapegoat for all the problems; western values (which they never even clearly defined). Enter the State Administration of Film, Radio and Television (广电总局) to ensure that all media, including movies and TV series, push this agenda, and the Social Credit System (社会信用体系) to ensure that your level of success in life is determined by how closely you follow the party line. People will not even dare joke about the party, let alone criticize it; too easy to get caught and too much to lose. Power will go unchecked at unprecedented levels and be enforced by technology. I could write a lot more, but these are just some of the reasons I think China's future is grim. I have lived in China for a few years and I've been seeing these changes happen before my eyes.
  - mac01021 10y ago
    Interesting... Thanks! What city were you in, out of curiosity?
    - iliketosleep 10y ago
      guangzhou
  - contingencies 10y ago
    Disagree. Been here 15 years, on and off. Current-era China is innovative, dynamic, real, and above all pragmatic. Politics are basically ignored and irrelevant to most people. China's future is bright, people here are one generation from poverty and can get by simply when necessary. No water? No power? No gasoline? No communications? No problem. People will get by, without grumbling too much, even in the cities. I've seen it with my own eyes. At a time when America and the EU both have little to say for themselves, belittling China's future is rather hypocritical. Remember, China was a self-sufficient economy less than a handful of decades ago, is massively investing in renewable energy and leads the world in things like electric vehicle adoption and mobile payment. Of course, it aint all sunshine, but its pretty warm regardless. (I'm based in Kunming)
nabla9 10y ago
China is just like Britain during industrialization, just multiple times larger scale and everything is happening faster. People often wonder why people move to cities to work in horrible conditions. They prefer city dystopia and constant calories to hunger. Real dystopia is happening in the Sahel Belt in Africa and Indian countryside and slums. Unhindered population growth just increases people who face food insecurity in these places.

cjslep 10y ago

I think the "crazy" aspect coming into play is an iteration of the world-shattering view that occurs when a child realizes his or her parents are just people, not infallible perfect protectors. This fundamentally changes the view of the world for a person because a fundamental truth is no longer true. This change can be viewed as "crazy" and reality becomes more chaotic in the new world view. I believe the same thing is happening right now in modern China. Simply substitute constituents and the oligarchy instead for the child and parent. When the citizens realize the infallible groupthink propaganda touted by the ruling class is in fact being touted by people inflicted with the human condition, they also experience a change in world view. Again, this change is "crazy" and more chaotic: A fundamental truth in their world view is no longer true. Remember, China favored building a society on Confucianism where society had a set order. There is no room for the chaos in a Confucian society. However, the less-promoted Dao De Jing was written in an attempt to perfectly capture the chaos, contradictions, and hypocrisies of reality. And in a way, applying its teachings to itself indicates it both succeeds and fails in doing so. The "ultra-unrealism" that the author keeps espousing seems to me a reaction for coming to grips to the mind-expanding change that comes when realizing a truth previously fundamental is no longer true. I am not trying to dismiss their feelings but am appreciating the personal growth. I hope others do too.

coldtea 10y ago
>I believe the same thing is happening right now in modern China. Simply substitute constituents and the oligarchy instead for the child and parent. Only ordinary Chinese citizens are not childlike and easily led at all (that's an early colonial misunderstanding) -- they are just as smart and street-wise as we are, and understand all the gritty details -- they always did.
- cjslep 10y ago
  Thanks for pointing this out. It was not my intention to portray Chinese citizens as childlike. I simply meant to use the loss of childhood innocence as an example of how world views can be changed at a fundamental level. That kind of change can occur at any stage of life for anyone; childhood innocence tends to be the most relatable as an example across cultures. Another example was given to me by a coworker: after Fukushima, she realized that her employer ultimately did not care about her safety in a regional-paralyzing event. That shattered her world view about how she would be viewed as an object, not a person, by employers. This was despite all the women-in-tech, no-glass-ceiling, etc rhetoric. She vowed to take a new job where she would consider only employers that had demonstrated an active commitment to their employee's safety. It changed her world view about PR pieces put out by companies, especially with regards to diversity. Edit: To conclude, I personally believe there is an opportunity for personal growth about learning a healthy distrust in what government or politically-active people have to say in any country, including the USA, for everyone. Including myself. I truly did not mean to single out the Chinese in a degrading manner.

xamuel 10y ago

The author's examples of so-called ultra-unreal are not so new. Like there were no corrupt courtesans in olden days? Re: The Internet: It doesn't necessitate a new genre anymore than the invention of the telephone did. Good literature incorporates technology just where it's needed to move the plot along and it's all just window dressing over the basic proverbs and parables at the core.

coldtea 10y ago

So, some corrupt officials, a polygamist, a wanted official seeking asylum in a foreign consulate, and restaurants reusing cooking oil too much is an example of "unreality"? Where exactly did the author grew up in? Cushioned upper class life, or Disneyland? And those examples in a country with over a billion people? You can find all those examples in Africa, Asia, South America, etc. A lot of those are hardly uncommon in the West either, just in more "white collar" versions. Restaurants re-using cooking-oil? Tons of restaurant are closed every year for just that and worse hygienic offenses. Or we have some company like VW falsifying emissions data (and lately, it comes out that several other companies did), impacting the environment in a huge scale. Corrupt politicians? We have Presidents and PMs, senators and MPs openly retiring and joining the boards of companies they helped during their political career. Heck, in Mexico the mob abducted 140+ students, executed them all together, and for the country it was business as usual for the country. And those are examples or unreality? LOL.

cooper12 10y ago
You're doing no better by trivializing the author's purview. He doesn't live anywhere else you mentioned, he lives in China and in Tibet before that. That is the world he inhabits and that his writing reflects. Not to mention that problems are relative; you think an American balking at finding out their favorite restaurant was closed because of hygiene issues doesn't feel something comparable to a Chinese person who finds out their favorite street vendor used gutter oil? [0] Also in all of those Western examples you gave, China was much worse off. How can you say that China's situation isn't bad with a straight face? This is a country where the smug is so bad you can't see a few feet ahead of you. Where people who criticize the government can be made to disappear. Where the internet goes through a firewall [1] and is closed off from the rest of the world. [2] Sure, there are many countries worst off, but that doesn't mean we can completely overlook issues with our own countries. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gutter_oil https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gutter_oil [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Firewall https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Firewall [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Websites_blocked_in_mainland_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Websites_blocked_in_mainland_C...
- 10y ago

mac01021 10y ago

Does anyone have a link to the original Chinese source of this article?

LiweiZ 10y ago
I'm not able to find the article in Chinese anywhere, either.

LiweiZ 10y ago

"chaohuan" perhaps means "超幻" in Chinese.

LiweiZ 10y ago

I only skimmed the article since reading familiar @#$% in Chinese context in another language made me feel sick. I think this guy is just like many other Chinese that want to make a claim on a global stage with little awareness of what the reality on that stage might be. They often coin a concept for China and claim its uniqueness and somewhat advancement. People are easy to make that kind of claim when all they can see are just raw observations, especially when they think they know what they observed.

LiweiZ 10y ago
OK, I finally found something related he wrote in Chinese "超幻时代的写作（宁肯）": http://www.bjwl.org.cn/wwwroot/bjzjw/publish/article/657/53058.shtml http://www.bjwl.org.cn/wwwroot/bjzjw/publish/article/657/530... From what I can guess, he is from the inside of the system "体制内". So most likely, someone in the system needs to do some more "theoretical" work to prove/claim the advancement of "us" (Chinese). That's it. Don't worry about what it actually delivers, it is way less related than we think. The only difference nowadays is that we can make those propaganda seen by westerners. Even on HN.

ZenoArrow 10y ago

Whilst I'm sure China has some 'ultra-unreal' situations, I don't think anything it can produce will top this one... 62 people have the same level of wealth as half the world's population. If you're talking ultra-unreal, nothing else is likely to come close to global inequality. http://www.oxfam.org.uk/media-centre/press-releases/2016/01/62-people-own-same-as-half-world-says-oxfam-inequality-report-davos-world-economic-forum http://www.oxfam.org.uk/media-centre/press-releases/2016/01/...

aab0 10y ago

I don't know about 'new'. I read Dos Passos's _U.S.A._ trilogy many years ago, and what I kept thinking in reading articles and essays about China's modernization over the past decades is, 'it's just like in Dos Passos!' Especially when you read about some Chinese businessman who has founded a dozen businesses none of which have anything to do with each other after starting as a beggar or something, I kept finding it an echo of the people in Passos. China is really in a similar stage as the USA was in the Gilded Age, right down to the muckrakers in Hong Kong and private security agencies.

tzakrajs 10y ago

Modern Chinese writer so crazy he invents new literary genre.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

labrador 10y ago

The astonishing thing is that China works as well as it does after the utter madness of the so-called "Great Leap Forward."

dreamszl 10y ago

Sorry but I really don't think "chaohuan" is a Chinese word. I don't like the author's writing style, use measures instead of the content to gain readers interest. Also I agree with some fact in the article, but it overemphasizes the bad side and neglect the good side. I agree the "Good fortune is that wherein disaster lurks", but I don't think we should stop progressing because of the afraid of the disters. There is also another Chinese saying "Righting a wrong must first Overcorrect", although it's saying overcorrect but I think it's saying all the cost of doing right. And the bad side can be seen by the public is because the Chinese government is doing something to deal with the bad things.

dreamszl 10y ago
And HN prefer to write a bad China, but as a Chinese citizen I think my life is becoming better and richer instead of worse. And mood and bias both have huge impact to make us misunderstanding the world.