What do you think?
Rate this book
New Penguin Parallel Text: Short Stories in Chinese
A dual-language edition of Chinese stories—many appearing in English for the first time
This new volume of eight short stories, with parallel translations, offers students at all levels the opportunity to enjoy a wide range of contemporary literature from the world’s most spoken language, without having to constantly to refer back to a dictionary.
The stories—many of which appear here in English for the first time—are by well-known writers as well as emerging voices. From a story by Li Rui about the honest simplicity of a Shanxi farmer to one by Ma Yuan exposing the seamy underside of contemporary urban society, they are infused with both rural dialect and urban slang and feature a wide range of styles and points of view.
Complete with notes, the stories make excellent reading in either language.
Table of Contents
Introduction
“O, Xiangxue” —Tie Ning (b. 1957), translated by John Balcom
“The Ancestor” —Bi Feiyu (b. 1964), translated by John Balcom
“Dog” —Cao Naiqian (b. 1949), translated by John Balcom
“Plow Ox” —Li Rui (b. 1950), translated by John Balcom
“The Mistake” —Ma Yuan (b. 1953), translated by John Balcom
“Lanterns for the Dead” —Jiang Yun (b. 1954), translated by John Balcom
“Greasy Moon” —Jia Pingwa (b. 1953), translated by John Balcom
“Receiving the Precepts” —Wang Zengqi (1970–1997), translated by John Balcom
Notes on Chinese Texts
This new volume of eight short stories, with parallel translations, offers students at all levels the opportunity to enjoy a wide range of contemporary literature from the world’s most spoken language, without having to constantly to refer back to a dictionary.
The stories—many of which appear here in English for the first time—are by well-known writers as well as emerging voices. From a story by Li Rui about the honest simplicity of a Shanxi farmer to one by Ma Yuan exposing the seamy underside of contemporary urban society, they are infused with both rural dialect and urban slang and feature a wide range of styles and points of view.
Complete with notes, the stories make excellent reading in either language.
Table of Contents
Introduction
“O, Xiangxue” —Tie Ning (b. 1957), translated by John Balcom
“The Ancestor” —Bi Feiyu (b. 1964), translated by John Balcom
“Dog” —Cao Naiqian (b. 1949), translated by John Balcom
“Plow Ox” —Li Rui (b. 1950), translated by John Balcom
“The Mistake” —Ma Yuan (b. 1953), translated by John Balcom
“Lanterns for the Dead” —Jiang Yun (b. 1954), translated by John Balcom
“Greasy Moon” —Jia Pingwa (b. 1953), translated by John Balcom
“Receiving the Precepts” —Wang Zengqi (1970–1997), translated by John Balcom
Notes on Chinese Texts
272 pages, Paperback
Published June 25, 2013
32 people are currently reading
195 people want to read
About the author
John Balcom
28 books2 followersJohn Balcom (editor/translator/introducer) is an award-winning translator, a past president of the American Literary Translators Association, and an associate professor and the head of the Chinese program at the Monterey Institute of International Studies.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
January 18, 2015
Unfortuantely this book reminded me that as much as I love clasical Chinese literature I don't care for modern stories at all! They seem to nearly all be about how dumb/dirty/supersticious etc peasants are. The translations were good but I just didn't care for hardly any of the stories at all.
The first story, xiangxue by Tie Ning was very simple. It was about a small village that had a train come through it and young girls who sold things to people on the train. One of them was a student in a local school and wanted a pencil case like the girls in her class to prove she wasn't a country bumpkin. It was quite simplistic but I quite liked the writing and could easily picture the young girls.
The 2nd story the anestor, I didn't care for at all, an old woman and her ignorant children. It reminded me why I don't normally like modern fiction
The third story Dog was about an old man who did all the work called Dog. It was another "ignorant peasant story.
As was the fourth story Plough ox which was about a man who really liked his ox and ran away with him when foot and mouth hit the village. While it was the same theme as the others I liked it a bit better as the writing was more eloquent and it reminded me of the Dunhuang manuscript that was dedicated to the loyal ox.
the fifth story the mistake was kinda pointless about two kids born at the same time, it was a sad story though the narrator spent more time focusing on his missing hat than the children being born and their different parents, or lack of parents. It felt like a story that was trying very hard to be "modern" even though it's judgement of sex outside marriage felt very old fashioned.
The fifth story Lanterns for the dead by Jing Yun was the best and was the one that convinced me not to give the book away when I finished reading it. It was about a young woman visiting the Yellow River for a conference and the memories of a public execution that had happened there. It was lyrical and haunting and was wonderful. There were some lovely passages in the Chinese and it's defintiely a story I will read again.
Greasy Moon I didn't care for at all. It was trying to be too clever and was about a homocidal killer who sold his victims to be made into dumplings, and had sex with dead women, told in a disjointed style that went back and forth in time. It was a fancy version of the peasants are dumb stories.
Receiving the precepts by Wang Zengqi on the other hand was just wonderful. Wang remembered that peasants actually had a lot of skills, and being a farmer required lots of different knowledge. The first half of the story was a fantastic description of popular Buddhist religion as it was viewed through ordinary people's lives and the second half was about life in village for young women. I found it fascinating and really enjoyed the style. After the horridness of the previous stories it was a refreshing change.
Even though I didn't enjoy most of the stories I'm still glad I read this. It was nice to be able to appreciate different styles in Chinese writing (something I don't think I've picked up on before) and it gave me the names of a couple Chinese authors I'd like to read more books by when my Chinese gets better.
The first story, xiangxue by Tie Ning was very simple. It was about a small village that had a train come through it and young girls who sold things to people on the train. One of them was a student in a local school and wanted a pencil case like the girls in her class to prove she wasn't a country bumpkin. It was quite simplistic but I quite liked the writing and could easily picture the young girls.
The 2nd story the anestor, I didn't care for at all, an old woman and her ignorant children. It reminded me why I don't normally like modern fiction
The third story Dog was about an old man who did all the work called Dog. It was another "ignorant peasant story.
As was the fourth story Plough ox which was about a man who really liked his ox and ran away with him when foot and mouth hit the village. While it was the same theme as the others I liked it a bit better as the writing was more eloquent and it reminded me of the Dunhuang manuscript that was dedicated to the loyal ox.
the fifth story the mistake was kinda pointless about two kids born at the same time, it was a sad story though the narrator spent more time focusing on his missing hat than the children being born and their different parents, or lack of parents. It felt like a story that was trying very hard to be "modern" even though it's judgement of sex outside marriage felt very old fashioned.
The fifth story Lanterns for the dead by Jing Yun was the best and was the one that convinced me not to give the book away when I finished reading it. It was about a young woman visiting the Yellow River for a conference and the memories of a public execution that had happened there. It was lyrical and haunting and was wonderful. There were some lovely passages in the Chinese and it's defintiely a story I will read again.
Greasy Moon I didn't care for at all. It was trying to be too clever and was about a homocidal killer who sold his victims to be made into dumplings, and had sex with dead women, told in a disjointed style that went back and forth in time. It was a fancy version of the peasants are dumb stories.
Receiving the precepts by Wang Zengqi on the other hand was just wonderful. Wang remembered that peasants actually had a lot of skills, and being a farmer required lots of different knowledge. The first half of the story was a fantastic description of popular Buddhist religion as it was viewed through ordinary people's lives and the second half was about life in village for young women. I found it fascinating and really enjoyed the style. After the horridness of the previous stories it was a refreshing change.
Even though I didn't enjoy most of the stories I'm still glad I read this. It was nice to be able to appreciate different styles in Chinese writing (something I don't think I've picked up on before) and it gave me the names of a couple Chinese authors I'd like to read more books by when my Chinese gets better.
September 26, 2021
This is the best anthology of short stories I've read since college. The stories are memorable and varied. The arrangement builds a picture of the struggles associated with modern China: rapid modernization, the cruel history of the civil war and cultural revolution, and the sometimes sweet, sometimes simple, sometimes psychotic behavior of people undergoing historic currents or just plane old poverty and human nature. Most of the stories were written or at least published after the worst restrictions of state editors were relaxed after Deng sloughed off the cultural revolution.
As an added bonus for the language learner, stories are written in Chinese with accompanying English translations. Alas the Chinese is still entirely beyond me, but the translations by John Balcom are just rivetting. Some Chinese friends mentioned there are a few Chinese character (word) errors, but that didn't affect me as an English language reader.
Just the ignorant and outlandish peasant Dog is worth the price of the book. But you also get sweet Xianxue, the befuddled and erring youths in "the Mistake", the damaged criminal in Greasy Moon, the nostalgia of Receiving the Precepts, and so much more. There's realism, symbolism, allegory; comedy, horror and crime.... something for everyone. Go buy this!
As an added bonus for the language learner, stories are written in Chinese with accompanying English translations. Alas the Chinese is still entirely beyond me, but the translations by John Balcom are just rivetting. Some Chinese friends mentioned there are a few Chinese character (word) errors, but that didn't affect me as an English language reader.
Just the ignorant and outlandish peasant Dog is worth the price of the book. But you also get sweet Xianxue, the befuddled and erring youths in "the Mistake", the damaged criminal in Greasy Moon, the nostalgia of Receiving the Precepts, and so much more. There's realism, symbolism, allegory; comedy, horror and crime.... something for everyone. Go buy this!
August 23, 2014
Reading outside your own culture is highly recommended. Observing the links and the differences is half the enjoyment, the rest is from the startling originality that comes from freedom from familiar tropes and cliches.
Of course there is a downside, a couple of the tales, Dog and Plow-Ox, (there was likely animal symbolism I missed) seemed directionless and a bit random. The Mistake and The Ancestor were compelling and powerful. Overall the collection is a relatively quick read of well chosen short tales.
Of course there is a downside, a couple of the tales, Dog and Plow-Ox, (there was likely animal symbolism I missed) seemed directionless and a bit random. The Mistake and The Ancestor were compelling and powerful. Overall the collection is a relatively quick read of well chosen short tales.
July 6, 2025
Absolutely loved this book and so glad these stories are now available to students of Chinese and Chinese readers living abroad.
Yes, some stories are definitely R/18+ rated and other will read as as creepy or strange, but imo this is still a solid introduction to modern (20th century) Chinese literature, in the sense that it contains the kind of texts and authors (Wang Zengqi anyone?) you’ll study in school or read for your own interest as a teenager in China. It might help to do a bit of research on a concept called 中式恐怖 – Chinese-style horror, especially in rural places – and, relatedly, works reflecting on societal change and human ways throughout this century, most obviously authors such as Lu Xun and the New Culture Movement.
The only complaint I have (hence the missing star) is the quality of Chinese typesetting – I spotted multiple typos where the wrong characters are used instead of their correct homophones, and in some places it’s clear that punctuation marks have been missed out. An afternoon of proofreading would’ve solved this.
Yes, some stories are definitely R/18+ rated and other will read as as creepy or strange, but imo this is still a solid introduction to modern (20th century) Chinese literature, in the sense that it contains the kind of texts and authors (Wang Zengqi anyone?) you’ll study in school or read for your own interest as a teenager in China. It might help to do a bit of research on a concept called 中式恐怖 – Chinese-style horror, especially in rural places – and, relatedly, works reflecting on societal change and human ways throughout this century, most obviously authors such as Lu Xun and the New Culture Movement.
The only complaint I have (hence the missing star) is the quality of Chinese typesetting – I spotted multiple typos where the wrong characters are used instead of their correct homophones, and in some places it’s clear that punctuation marks have been missed out. An afternoon of proofreading would’ve solved this.
April 14, 2022
"Lanterns for the Dead" was my absolute favourite! I loved most of the stories and it was an amazing experience to realize that I can understand Chinese to some extent.
dnf
March 16, 2024reading this chapter by chapter with my mom
March 28, 2019
First time reading a parallel text book! It’s a non-intimidating way to approach Chinese short story literature.
Put side by side with the English translation, the beauty of the Chinese language is apparent. There’s really nothing better than enjoying the original text. I hope to continue to learn so I can enjoy more of such texts!
Did not enjoy some of the stories, some were plain creepy or strange. Guess that’s literature for you 🤷🏼♀️
Put side by side with the English translation, the beauty of the Chinese language is apparent. There’s really nothing better than enjoying the original text. I hope to continue to learn so I can enjoy more of such texts!
Did not enjoy some of the stories, some were plain creepy or strange. Guess that’s literature for you 🤷🏼♀️
February 25, 2015
These stories are weird. Did it help me read Chinese characters better? Yes. Did I get what any of the stories were about? No.
January 8, 2023
There are few books like this available which have parallel Chinese-English texts to read some authentic Chinese literature without having to get too hung up on getting the dictionary out whenever an unfamiliar character appears. I rated it 4 stars because there is little else like this available, but there are some problems with this format.
Firstly, this is part of a Penguin Parallel Text series, and other languages include French, German, Spanish and so on. However, while all those languages have phonetic writing systems, Chinese characters are (largely) non-phonetic, which means when you encounter a new character you may have no idea how to pronounce it without getting a dictionary out anyway. This means it is quite a lot harder to pick up new vocabulary by reading these stories compared to reading a German-English parallel text. It seems a bit low-effort of Penguin not to tailor the format of the book for this difference. Simply adding a Glossary of unusual vocabulary including the pinyin romanization after each short story would have been very easy to do and made a huge difference.
Secondly, the selection of stories is a little bit odd and feels slightly dated. Most seem to be stories from the 80s and China has changed immeasurably since then, so the stories seem to have an excessive focus on rural life, and there is quite a lot of obscure vocabulary related to agriculture that even the English words I didn't really know, and quite a lot of vocabulary and characters that my wife, a native speaker, was unfamiliar with, and there are a few dialect terms here and there. While I understand that the point is to read authentic texts designed for native speakers, the fact that to learn anything new you'd still have to frequently refer to the dictionary anyway makes me think you might be getting off reading contemporary Young Adult fiction instead.
Nevertheless, the stories are generally pretty good and I did get a sense of satisfaction from finishing them. My favourite story was Dog, telling a tale of a protagonist named Dog (and it remains ambiguous whether he is actually a dog or a person nicknamed Dog) who is simple and hard working and doesn't question what he is working for. He saves the day and is hailed as a hero and some journalists come to meet him, and then he naively says "oh this hard work was nothing! When I was helping building cannons for the Japanese, that was real hard work!" and then wonders why everyone suddenly leaves him at that point. I thought this was quite a nice and subversive critique of the cult of hard work as an inherent good in itself regardless of what the work is for, widespread in most countries but probably especially in China.
All in all, it is worth reading because there is little else like it available, but the benefit is more that you can practise your existing Chinese and finish some stories in authentic Chinese without constantly referring to a dictionary, but you probably won't learn anything new unless you refer to the dictionary constantly anyway.
Firstly, this is part of a Penguin Parallel Text series, and other languages include French, German, Spanish and so on. However, while all those languages have phonetic writing systems, Chinese characters are (largely) non-phonetic, which means when you encounter a new character you may have no idea how to pronounce it without getting a dictionary out anyway. This means it is quite a lot harder to pick up new vocabulary by reading these stories compared to reading a German-English parallel text. It seems a bit low-effort of Penguin not to tailor the format of the book for this difference. Simply adding a Glossary of unusual vocabulary including the pinyin romanization after each short story would have been very easy to do and made a huge difference.
Secondly, the selection of stories is a little bit odd and feels slightly dated. Most seem to be stories from the 80s and China has changed immeasurably since then, so the stories seem to have an excessive focus on rural life, and there is quite a lot of obscure vocabulary related to agriculture that even the English words I didn't really know, and quite a lot of vocabulary and characters that my wife, a native speaker, was unfamiliar with, and there are a few dialect terms here and there. While I understand that the point is to read authentic texts designed for native speakers, the fact that to learn anything new you'd still have to frequently refer to the dictionary anyway makes me think you might be getting off reading contemporary Young Adult fiction instead.
Nevertheless, the stories are generally pretty good and I did get a sense of satisfaction from finishing them. My favourite story was Dog, telling a tale of a protagonist named Dog (and it remains ambiguous whether he is actually a dog or a person nicknamed Dog) who is simple and hard working and doesn't question what he is working for. He saves the day and is hailed as a hero and some journalists come to meet him, and then he naively says "oh this hard work was nothing! When I was helping building cannons for the Japanese, that was real hard work!" and then wonders why everyone suddenly leaves him at that point. I thought this was quite a nice and subversive critique of the cult of hard work as an inherent good in itself regardless of what the work is for, widespread in most countries but probably especially in China.
All in all, it is worth reading because there is little else like it available, but the benefit is more that you can practise your existing Chinese and finish some stories in authentic Chinese without constantly referring to a dictionary, but you probably won't learn anything new unless you refer to the dictionary constantly anyway.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 14, 2019
Mixed with varieties of styles and theme, this is a good material for advanced reading practice. But please beware that there are few errors and typos. The best story is the last one, Receiving the Precepts. I haven't read anything that beautiful in a long time.
January 8, 2018
Only a few of these stories really interested me. Sorry, but I'll have to go for a 2 on this one.
July 12, 2013
As a learning aid, I don't feel I can judge its efficacy. I found some of these stories difficult, but then, I probably wouldn't have been interested in a collection more carefully aimed towards ability. Of the stories, the Bi Feiyu is absolutely stunning, I like the Ma Yuan as a piece of narrative craftsmanship, I liked the Jiang Yun story, and the Tie Ning and Wang Zengqi stories were charming, if not terribly interesting. Good collection overall.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews