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妈阁是座城
天之骄子段凯文何以会走进赌场？但其实作为赌场中的另一极、两性世界里的阴性，梅晓鸥才是一个最大的赌徒，她用青春赌爱情、她用情感赌人性，赌到血本无归，所有她为之奋斗和追求的都离她而去，金钱没了，房子卖了；爱人离开了；她极端的纵火行为虽遏制了儿子走向赌场的路，但终究留下了母子关系的隐忧。这样一个飞蛾扑火的决绝的女人，却是个矛盾之集成体
- GenresChina
426 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2012
3 people are currently reading
7 people want to read
About the author
Geling Yan
83 books231 followersGeling Yan (嚴歌苓) is one of the most acclaimed novelists and screenwriters writing in the Chinese language today and a well-established writer in English. Born in Shanghai, she served with the People's Liberation Army (PLA) during the Cultural Revolution, starting at age twelve as a dancer in an entertainment troupe.
After serving for over a decade with the PLA (including tours in Tibet and as a war correspondent during the Sino-Vietnam border conflict), Ms. Yan was discharged with a rank equivalent to Lieutenant Colonel. She published her first novel in 1986 and ever since has produced a steady stream of novels, short stories, novellas, essays and scripts. Her best-known novels in English are The Secret Talker, published by HarperCollins; Little Aunt Crane published in the UK by Random House affiliate Harvill Secker; The Flowers of War, published in the U.S. by The Other Press and elsewhere by Random House's Harvill Secker; The Banquet Bug (The Uninvited in its UK edition - written directly in English); and The Lost Daughter of Happiness, (translated by Cathy Silber) both published by Hyperion in the US and Faber & Faber in the UK. She has also published a novella and short story collection called White Snake and Other Stories, translated by Lawrence A. Walker and published by Aunt Lute Books.
Many of Geling Yan's works have been adapted for film and television, including internationally distributed films Xiu Xiu: The Sent-Down Girl (directed by Joan Chen) and Siao Yu (directed by Sylvia Chang; produced by Ang Lee). Chinese director Zhang Yimou made The Flowers of War, a big-budget film based on her work set during the 1937 Rape of Nanking, starring Academy Award winning actor Christian Bale; Coming Home 归来, based on her novel The Criminal Lu Yanshi 陆犯焉识, and One Second 一秒钟, also based on that novel.
Ms. Yan has also written numerous scripts based on her own and other authors' work, both in English and Chinese, including a script for a biopic on the iconic Peking opera star Mei Lanfang for director Chen Kaige (released as Forever Enthralled 梅兰芳) starring Leon Lai and Zhang Ziyi. She wrote the script for Dangerous Liaisons 危險關係, a Chinese-language film directed by South Korean director Hur Jin-ho and starring Zhang Ziyi, Jang Dong Gun and Cecilia Cheung. Her novel Fang Hua 芳华 is the basis a film of the same name (English title Youth) directed by Chinese director Feng Xiaogang 冯小刚. Her novel A City Called Macau 妈阁是座城 was made into a film directed by Li Shaohong 李少红, released in 2018.
Geling Yan a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and of France's Société des Gens de Lettres. She is affiliated with the Hollywood screenwriters' union, Writers' Guild of America, west, and is a former member of the Chinese Writers' Association (中国作家协会).
Geling Yan went to the United States at the end of 1989 for graduate study. She holds a Master's in Fine Arts in Fiction Writing from Columbia College, Chicago. To date she has published over 40 books in various editions in Mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, the US, the UK and elsewhere; has won over 30 literary and film awards; and has had her work adapted or written scripts for numerous film, TV and radio works. Her works have been translated into twenty-one languages: Arabic, Bulgarian, Czech, Dutch, English, Farsi, French, German, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Thai, Uyghur, and Vietnamese, and her English-language novel The Banquet Bug/The Uninvited was translated into Chinese. She currently lives in Berlin, Germany.
She has been subject to an unofficial but effective ban in China since March 2020, when she wrote and promulgated an essay on the Chinese government's initial handling of COVID-19. Her future Chinese-language work will be published by her own publishing company, New Song Media GmbH.
For non-Chinese language publishing she is represented by Agence Astier-Pécher.
After serving for over a decade with the PLA (including tours in Tibet and as a war correspondent during the Sino-Vietnam border conflict), Ms. Yan was discharged with a rank equivalent to Lieutenant Colonel. She published her first novel in 1986 and ever since has produced a steady stream of novels, short stories, novellas, essays and scripts. Her best-known novels in English are The Secret Talker, published by HarperCollins; Little Aunt Crane published in the UK by Random House affiliate Harvill Secker; The Flowers of War, published in the U.S. by The Other Press and elsewhere by Random House's Harvill Secker; The Banquet Bug (The Uninvited in its UK edition - written directly in English); and The Lost Daughter of Happiness, (translated by Cathy Silber) both published by Hyperion in the US and Faber & Faber in the UK. She has also published a novella and short story collection called White Snake and Other Stories, translated by Lawrence A. Walker and published by Aunt Lute Books.
Many of Geling Yan's works have been adapted for film and television, including internationally distributed films Xiu Xiu: The Sent-Down Girl (directed by Joan Chen) and Siao Yu (directed by Sylvia Chang; produced by Ang Lee). Chinese director Zhang Yimou made The Flowers of War, a big-budget film based on her work set during the 1937 Rape of Nanking, starring Academy Award winning actor Christian Bale; Coming Home 归来, based on her novel The Criminal Lu Yanshi 陆犯焉识, and One Second 一秒钟, also based on that novel.
Ms. Yan has also written numerous scripts based on her own and other authors' work, both in English and Chinese, including a script for a biopic on the iconic Peking opera star Mei Lanfang for director Chen Kaige (released as Forever Enthralled 梅兰芳) starring Leon Lai and Zhang Ziyi. She wrote the script for Dangerous Liaisons 危險關係, a Chinese-language film directed by South Korean director Hur Jin-ho and starring Zhang Ziyi, Jang Dong Gun and Cecilia Cheung. Her novel Fang Hua 芳华 is the basis a film of the same name (English title Youth) directed by Chinese director Feng Xiaogang 冯小刚. Her novel A City Called Macau 妈阁是座城 was made into a film directed by Li Shaohong 李少红, released in 2018.
Geling Yan a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and of France's Société des Gens de Lettres. She is affiliated with the Hollywood screenwriters' union, Writers' Guild of America, west, and is a former member of the Chinese Writers' Association (中国作家协会).
Geling Yan went to the United States at the end of 1989 for graduate study. She holds a Master's in Fine Arts in Fiction Writing from Columbia College, Chicago. To date she has published over 40 books in various editions in Mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, the US, the UK and elsewhere; has won over 30 literary and film awards; and has had her work adapted or written scripts for numerous film, TV and radio works. Her works have been translated into twenty-one languages: Arabic, Bulgarian, Czech, Dutch, English, Farsi, French, German, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Thai, Uyghur, and Vietnamese, and her English-language novel The Banquet Bug/The Uninvited was translated into Chinese. She currently lives in Berlin, Germany.
She has been subject to an unofficial but effective ban in China since March 2020, when she wrote and promulgated an essay on the Chinese government's initial handling of COVID-19. Her future Chinese-language work will be published by her own publishing company, New Song Media GmbH.
For non-Chinese language publishing she is represented by Agence Astier-Pécher.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
March 22, 2022
For most people, the world of gambling either conjures up glamourous Hollywood movies, like James Bond and Ocean’s 11, or grimy old men in bookkeeper shops betting on the horses. This novel by Yan Geling gives us a mixture here by portraying the stories of big rollers in China, but lifting up their masks and exposing the grubby little men lying beneath, body odor and all.
We’re introduced to the protagonist, a middle-aged single mother living in Macau called Xiao’ou, through a story of how gambling runs in her blood, with the tragic tale of her male ancestor’s addiction. This eventually led to him taking his life and, as a result, his wife became obsessed with wiping out the male line of her family to ensure the defective gambling gene wasn’t passed down.
From there we jump to Xiao’ou’s current job as a junket operator/bate-ficha (壘碼仔/ Cantonese: daap6 ma5 zai2) in Macau; basically, these are the middlemen who bring high-rollers into casinos. Topically enough, while I was penning this review, this story emerged, giving an insight into the real world goings-on behind this fictional account.
We gradually come to learn that despite her supposed scorn for gamblers, Xiao’ou is gambling by proxy, in that she borrows money from the casino on behalf of her clients, and then has to chase up the money with them after paying the casino back on their behalf. She also offers clients the option to treble or quadruple the actual chips on the table, in an under-the-table bet with her, which makes the stakes even higher. Many are subsequently unable to pay and she risks losing big if other debtors collect from the clients before she can.
Two of her clients occupy the majority of the narrative of the book, Duan Kaiwen and Shi Qilan. Despite her attachment to them, the two men seem to share a sociopathic veneer of social grace masking extreme disregard for the people in their lives. While Shi is both an old client and old flame who has already fallen on desperate times by the time the novel opens, Duan is a new client for Xiao’ou. At first, the relationship between her and Duan is quite flirtatious and cordial, but as he gradually reveals the inveterate gambler underneath his facade of sophistication and fails to make good on his promises of payment, their relationship descends into a bitter rivalry. Duan, an architect of some renown, continues to get deeper and deeper into debt, whilst hiding his addiction from his family. Eventually, he abandons his wife (who subsequently has a stroke) and children, moving to North America to escape debt collectors. Things get worse for Shi Qilan too, as, after he loses his wood carving business, his wife leaves him, taking their son with her.
We gradually come to realize, that, where, at the start of the novel, we were observing Shi and Duan in contrast to the protagonist, she is, in fact, very similar to them. She misses out on her son’s life, just to accompany the gamblers with whom she has a strange fixation. There is one point in the novel where this becomes very clear. Despite her fellow bate-ficha Laomao urging her to recoup debts owed by Duan Kaiwen, she instead chooses to continue watching as he gambles more and more:
「她擔心段凱文此刻收手。已經差不多夠還她的債了，他完全可以收手。假如他收了，曉鷗看懸念片的興奮和快感、緊張和驚悚就被釜底抽薪。那她就沒機會看段凱文墮落到底，把人渣做到極致了。假如他馬上就還曉鷗的錢，連本帶利，就可以找回他一向的傲慢莊嚴。
“She was worried that Duan Kaiwen would resign just then. He already had around enough to repay his debt to her, so he could just quit. If he did, it would put an end to the excitement, pleasure, tension and thrills Xiao’ou was getting from this cliff-hanger. And she wouldn’t have the opportunity to see Duan Kaiwen fall from grace and become a fully-fledged scumbag. If he returned Xiao’ou’s money right away, principal and interest included, he would recoup with it his haughty sense of pride.
《媽閣是座城》初版，嚴歌苓著，麥田城邦文化出版，初版，2016年8月，234頁 // MY TRANSLATION
There is a sort of dialectic at play, we discover, in which Xiao’ou thinks she’s taking revenge on gamblers, invoking the name of her female ancestor; but in her persecution of them she becomes a mirror image of them. Despite her incredible insight into how the minds of gamblers work, Xiao’ou doesn’t seem to catch herself enmeshed in precisely the same logic:
無非贏了幾手，便自認為找到了感覺，看出了路數，接下去把偶然的贏當成必然，把必然的輸當成偶然。想想吧，一個顛倒了偶然和必然的人會一有什麼結局？就是必然的犧牲品。
Especially when you win a few hands, you’ll think you’ve got a feel for it, that you can see a strategy, then you see what happened by chance as inevitable, and see what’s inevitable as chance. Think about it, how will it end for someone who has confused chance for the inevitable? They are the inevitable sacrificial lambs.
《媽閣是座城》初版，嚴歌苓著，麥田城邦文化出版，初版，2016年8月，216頁 // MY TRANSLATION
Xiao’ou seems to thrive on being owed, as Shi states towards the end of the novel, after the two of them have become lovers:
「你為什麼老要別人虧欠你呢？！」他有點生氣了。
「我沒讓別人虧我……」
「你就讓我虧欠你，永遠還不清你，把人家都變成乞丐，你永遠做施主……」
“Why do you always want people to owe you?!” He was a little angry.
“I don’t make them owe me…”
“You made me owe you, and I’ll never be able to pay you back. You turn other people into beggars, and you’re forever their patron…”
《媽閣是座城》初版，嚴歌苓著，麥田城邦文化出版，初版，2016年8月，343頁 // MY TRANSLATION
She eventually sees her own fixation with gambling when she catches her son at a casino with a group of friends in Macau. She realizes that she is largely responsible for exposing her son to the world of gambling and sees a sort of karma in learning that he has inherited the gambling gene.
她以為幹上疊碼仔的行當是報復盧晉桐，是替梅吳娘報復梅大榕，現在她自己得到報應了。
She thought that by working as a bate-ficha she was getting revenge on Lu Jintong (her estranged husband), and getting revenge on (her male ancestor) Mei Darong on behalf of (her female ancestor) Mei Wuniang, but now she’d gotten her comeuppance.
《媽閣是座城》初版，嚴歌苓著，麥田城邦文化出版，初版，2016年8月，350頁 // MY TRANSLATION
https://www.translatingtaiwan.com/202...
We’re introduced to the protagonist, a middle-aged single mother living in Macau called Xiao’ou, through a story of how gambling runs in her blood, with the tragic tale of her male ancestor’s addiction. This eventually led to him taking his life and, as a result, his wife became obsessed with wiping out the male line of her family to ensure the defective gambling gene wasn’t passed down.
From there we jump to Xiao’ou’s current job as a junket operator/bate-ficha (壘碼仔/ Cantonese: daap6 ma5 zai2) in Macau; basically, these are the middlemen who bring high-rollers into casinos. Topically enough, while I was penning this review, this story emerged, giving an insight into the real world goings-on behind this fictional account.
We gradually come to learn that despite her supposed scorn for gamblers, Xiao’ou is gambling by proxy, in that she borrows money from the casino on behalf of her clients, and then has to chase up the money with them after paying the casino back on their behalf. She also offers clients the option to treble or quadruple the actual chips on the table, in an under-the-table bet with her, which makes the stakes even higher. Many are subsequently unable to pay and she risks losing big if other debtors collect from the clients before she can.
Two of her clients occupy the majority of the narrative of the book, Duan Kaiwen and Shi Qilan. Despite her attachment to them, the two men seem to share a sociopathic veneer of social grace masking extreme disregard for the people in their lives. While Shi is both an old client and old flame who has already fallen on desperate times by the time the novel opens, Duan is a new client for Xiao’ou. At first, the relationship between her and Duan is quite flirtatious and cordial, but as he gradually reveals the inveterate gambler underneath his facade of sophistication and fails to make good on his promises of payment, their relationship descends into a bitter rivalry. Duan, an architect of some renown, continues to get deeper and deeper into debt, whilst hiding his addiction from his family. Eventually, he abandons his wife (who subsequently has a stroke) and children, moving to North America to escape debt collectors. Things get worse for Shi Qilan too, as, after he loses his wood carving business, his wife leaves him, taking their son with her.
We gradually come to realize, that, where, at the start of the novel, we were observing Shi and Duan in contrast to the protagonist, she is, in fact, very similar to them. She misses out on her son’s life, just to accompany the gamblers with whom she has a strange fixation. There is one point in the novel where this becomes very clear. Despite her fellow bate-ficha Laomao urging her to recoup debts owed by Duan Kaiwen, she instead chooses to continue watching as he gambles more and more:
「她擔心段凱文此刻收手。已經差不多夠還她的債了，他完全可以收手。假如他收了，曉鷗看懸念片的興奮和快感、緊張和驚悚就被釜底抽薪。那她就沒機會看段凱文墮落到底，把人渣做到極致了。假如他馬上就還曉鷗的錢，連本帶利，就可以找回他一向的傲慢莊嚴。
“She was worried that Duan Kaiwen would resign just then. He already had around enough to repay his debt to her, so he could just quit. If he did, it would put an end to the excitement, pleasure, tension and thrills Xiao’ou was getting from this cliff-hanger. And she wouldn’t have the opportunity to see Duan Kaiwen fall from grace and become a fully-fledged scumbag. If he returned Xiao’ou’s money right away, principal and interest included, he would recoup with it his haughty sense of pride.
《媽閣是座城》初版，嚴歌苓著，麥田城邦文化出版，初版，2016年8月，234頁 // MY TRANSLATION
There is a sort of dialectic at play, we discover, in which Xiao’ou thinks she’s taking revenge on gamblers, invoking the name of her female ancestor; but in her persecution of them she becomes a mirror image of them. Despite her incredible insight into how the minds of gamblers work, Xiao’ou doesn’t seem to catch herself enmeshed in precisely the same logic:
無非贏了幾手，便自認為找到了感覺，看出了路數，接下去把偶然的贏當成必然，把必然的輸當成偶然。想想吧，一個顛倒了偶然和必然的人會一有什麼結局？就是必然的犧牲品。
Especially when you win a few hands, you’ll think you’ve got a feel for it, that you can see a strategy, then you see what happened by chance as inevitable, and see what’s inevitable as chance. Think about it, how will it end for someone who has confused chance for the inevitable? They are the inevitable sacrificial lambs.
《媽閣是座城》初版，嚴歌苓著，麥田城邦文化出版，初版，2016年8月，216頁 // MY TRANSLATION
Xiao’ou seems to thrive on being owed, as Shi states towards the end of the novel, after the two of them have become lovers:
「你為什麼老要別人虧欠你呢？！」他有點生氣了。
「我沒讓別人虧我……」
「你就讓我虧欠你，永遠還不清你，把人家都變成乞丐，你永遠做施主……」
“Why do you always want people to owe you?!” He was a little angry.
“I don’t make them owe me…”
“You made me owe you, and I’ll never be able to pay you back. You turn other people into beggars, and you’re forever their patron…”
《媽閣是座城》初版，嚴歌苓著，麥田城邦文化出版，初版，2016年8月，343頁 // MY TRANSLATION
She eventually sees her own fixation with gambling when she catches her son at a casino with a group of friends in Macau. She realizes that she is largely responsible for exposing her son to the world of gambling and sees a sort of karma in learning that he has inherited the gambling gene.
她以為幹上疊碼仔的行當是報復盧晉桐，是替梅吳娘報復梅大榕，現在她自己得到報應了。
She thought that by working as a bate-ficha she was getting revenge on Lu Jintong (her estranged husband), and getting revenge on (her male ancestor) Mei Darong on behalf of (her female ancestor) Mei Wuniang, but now she’d gotten her comeuppance.
《媽閣是座城》初版，嚴歌苓著，麥田城邦文化出版，初版，2016年8月，350頁 // MY TRANSLATION
https://www.translatingtaiwan.com/202...
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 23, 2020
18年第四十八本。叶沙推荐。故事嵌套很熟练，梅晓鸥也是个赌徒，赌人而已。最大的败笔是女主的性格，与钱相伴十载，对人性早就磨的透透的了，哪里这么多的情感，如同一锅泡发的面一样臃肿
December 4, 2025
Geling Yan is a significant contemporary Chinese-language author, noted for her portrayals of contemporary China. I was amazed by her work "The Criminal Lu Yanshi", but this novel fell short of my expectations. I am not sure whether my discomfort stems from the theme of gambling, the characters themselves - with their genuinely incorrigible and morally vacant mentality, or their profit logic and conduct strike me as genuinely sordid.
But I guess this might be the real life of certain people, like junket operators and gamblers who are unable exercise self-restraint. This is also the first time I have learned about the occupation of junket operator and their amoral principles. Maybe I shouldn't impose my own moral framework when reading. It is a tragic novel anyway and the dark side of Macau, OR perhaps it reflects the city's more uncomfortable realities?
If you are interested in Macau or the gambling culture, it is worth reading. Ultimately, it was merely an average book for me.
But I guess this might be the real life of certain people, like junket operators and gamblers who are unable exercise self-restraint. This is also the first time I have learned about the occupation of junket operator and their amoral principles. Maybe I shouldn't impose my own moral framework when reading. It is a tragic novel anyway and the dark side of Macau, OR perhaps it reflects the city's more uncomfortable realities?
If you are interested in Macau or the gambling culture, it is worth reading. Ultimately, it was merely an average book for me.
July 9, 2021
远离赌博🎲珍爱生命
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews