20th anniversary reissue of a classic of queer Taiwanese fiction. I'm probably missing a lot of the context and references, so my notes should be taken with a significant portion of salt.
I'm enjoying this so far; it has a few purple prose moments (less so than a lot of the recent Chinese language fiction I've read), and the lengthy recounting of the secret origin of the protagonist's outrageous aunt seems a bit dated, even for the late 90s. But the narrative is mostly quiet and empathic, and has charming moments. The protagonist is a gay Taiwanese boy growing up in (mostly) Tokyo, mentored by said outrageous aunt. He is seduced by a slightly older Japanese youth who was involved in and soured on the '60s student protests in Japan; their first real "date" included a screening of a Shuji Terayama film. Well, that would work on me anytime.
The form is quite interesting. The main narrative is intercut with short snippets of a travelogue through rural west China, set decades before. I'm not sure about the connection between the two, but I suppose I'll find out.
Update: the rambling multi-generational family saga thing has its moments, but I'm really not a receptive reader for this kind of longwinded yarn-spinning.