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The Drink and Dream Teahouse
When Space Rocket Factory Number Two closes down in the small Chinese town of Shaoyang, it is the signal for the old culture to confront the new. Party Secretary Li cannot cope, and commits suicide, but not before daubing a series of slogans onto sheets of rice paper and hanging them outside his bedroom window (Our Leaders Are Drunk On The Taste Of Corruption reads one; The Party Officials Are Screwing Our Daughters, reads another).Those left behind have to clear up after Old Zhu has to keep Party Secretary Li's ashes in the bottom of his wardrobe. On the other side of the courtyard, their aria singing neighbour Madam Fan is temporarily silenced by the tragedy. Meanwhile Old Zhu's son, Da Shan, has returned from the city and fallen in love with not one but two childhood sweethearts.
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First published January 1, 2001
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About the author
Justin Hill
10 books109 followers Justin is an English novelist whose work has twice been nominated for the Man Booker Prize. He was born in Freeport, Grand Bahama Island in 1971 and was brought up in York. He was educated at St Peter's School, York, and was a member of St Cuthbert's Society, Durham University.
He worked for seven years as a volunteer with VSO (Voluntary Service Overseas) in rural China and Africa, before returning home to Yorkshire in 1999. His internationally acclaimed first novel, The Drink and Dream Teahouse, won the 2003 Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize and a 2002 Betty Trask Award, and banned by the government in China. It was also picked by the Washington Post as one of the Top Novels of 2001.
His second novel, Passing Under Heaven, won the 2005 Somerset Maugham Award and was shortlisted for the Encore Award. The Independent on Sunday and Sunday Telegraph both picked it for their Christmas Recommended Reads in 2005.
Ciao Asmara, a factual account of his time in Eritrea, was shortlisted for the 2003 Thomas Cook Travel Book Award.
In December 2009, he signed a two-book deal with Little, Brown, to publish his Conquest Series.
His work has been translated into fifteen languages.
He worked for seven years as a volunteer with VSO (Voluntary Service Overseas) in rural China and Africa, before returning home to Yorkshire in 1999. His internationally acclaimed first novel, The Drink and Dream Teahouse, won the 2003 Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize and a 2002 Betty Trask Award, and banned by the government in China. It was also picked by the Washington Post as one of the Top Novels of 2001.
His second novel, Passing Under Heaven, won the 2005 Somerset Maugham Award and was shortlisted for the Encore Award. The Independent on Sunday and Sunday Telegraph both picked it for their Christmas Recommended Reads in 2005.
Ciao Asmara, a factual account of his time in Eritrea, was shortlisted for the 2003 Thomas Cook Travel Book Award.
In December 2009, he signed a two-book deal with Little, Brown, to publish his Conquest Series.
His work has been translated into fifteen languages.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 39 reviews
November 26, 2018
Η Κίνα πάντα θα με συναρπάζει !! Το Πιο συναρπαστικό όμως είναι το ύφος του Χιλ. Έχει εμπεδώσει απόλυτα την κινέζικη σκέψη
December 15, 2018
Was für ein wunderbarer, authentischer Roman.
December 14, 2020
There's precious few authors who don't have a pile of failed novels sitting at the bottom of the cupboard or hidden on a hard drive. There's even fewer whose first completed novel was written when still young. Justin Hill manages both of these and he adds a third: writing convincingly and moving about the old while still a young man himself. To really make this debut novel stand out, Hill does all this in the context of turn of the millennium China: but not the China of newly minted millionaires and communist capitalism but one of the semi-forgotten towns of the northern hinterlands where the winter blows in from over the Mongolian plain, bitter and long. It's an extraordinary window into a China that very few people outside China know, a hard-scrabble land that, despite its atrocities, communist rule probably improved, leaving the people there caught in the middle of the pivot to consumer communist capitalism made by the Party bigwigs in far away Beijing.
It's a quite brilliant portrayal of a group of characters struggling to come to terms with a China that has pretty comprehensively demolished its past - Mao ranks as one of the worse cultural vandals in history - but is also busy overturning the few certainties bequeathed by the communist era. For the elderly, it's a time for some to attempt to come to grips with the past and in particular their parts in the Cultural Revolution. For the young, it's an attempt to find a road between the new Party goal of getting rich and dealing with the aftermath of Tiananmen Square. It's a portrayal of the oldest continuously civilised society on earth trying to understand how it could have systematically destroyed that heritage and picking up the pieces of what is left.
All of this is done in the context of the most human of stories: of Da Shan, returning to his old home after getting rich in the big city but still carrying the burden of his part in the great betrayal following Tiananmen Square; of Liu Bei, his one-time lover, eking out her living in the Drink and Dream Teahouse of the title - a brothel frequented by members of the local Party hierarchy. It's the story of their parents and the other old stagers, still scarred by memories of famine and want and political destruction. It's a story of a society still deeply scarred by the brutality visited upon it, a brutality that plays out in the story in a couple of harsh scenes of sexual violence that, while integral to the story, might make the book unpalatable for certain readers.
It's not a story with happy endings but then, the story of China is no fairytale: they do not all live happily ever after, as recent events in Hong Kong and Wuhan show. Read it for an insight into what China was becoming twenty years ago and set it against what the Party lets us see of China now: the true story is very different from what is portrayed in the media. Read it also for a prose style that makes an extraordinary attempt to convey, in English, something of the rhythms and cadences of Chinese.
The Drink and Dream Teahouse would be an outstanding novel for any writer: it's a truly extraordinary novel for a first-time author.
It's a quite brilliant portrayal of a group of characters struggling to come to terms with a China that has pretty comprehensively demolished its past - Mao ranks as one of the worse cultural vandals in history - but is also busy overturning the few certainties bequeathed by the communist era. For the elderly, it's a time for some to attempt to come to grips with the past and in particular their parts in the Cultural Revolution. For the young, it's an attempt to find a road between the new Party goal of getting rich and dealing with the aftermath of Tiananmen Square. It's a portrayal of the oldest continuously civilised society on earth trying to understand how it could have systematically destroyed that heritage and picking up the pieces of what is left.
All of this is done in the context of the most human of stories: of Da Shan, returning to his old home after getting rich in the big city but still carrying the burden of his part in the great betrayal following Tiananmen Square; of Liu Bei, his one-time lover, eking out her living in the Drink and Dream Teahouse of the title - a brothel frequented by members of the local Party hierarchy. It's the story of their parents and the other old stagers, still scarred by memories of famine and want and political destruction. It's a story of a society still deeply scarred by the brutality visited upon it, a brutality that plays out in the story in a couple of harsh scenes of sexual violence that, while integral to the story, might make the book unpalatable for certain readers.
It's not a story with happy endings but then, the story of China is no fairytale: they do not all live happily ever after, as recent events in Hong Kong and Wuhan show. Read it for an insight into what China was becoming twenty years ago and set it against what the Party lets us see of China now: the true story is very different from what is portrayed in the media. Read it also for a prose style that makes an extraordinary attempt to convey, in English, something of the rhythms and cadences of Chinese.
The Drink and Dream Teahouse would be an outstanding novel for any writer: it's a truly extraordinary novel for a first-time author.
May 23, 2017
Loved this one! There are no happy endings here, so don't expect any. Justin Hill is a master of language. Clear images make the characters and setting come alive.
October 22, 2019
A warts and all picture of post Tian An Men China. I so wanted someone to have a happy ending, but maybe I'm just an old bourgeois softy.
April 26, 2020
It was very interesting and i loved how the chinese ways were described.
Totally recommend.
Totally recommend.
March 14, 2024
Fascinating and it didn't end predictably, which I applaud.
August 7, 2025
2,5☆
weird AF. I gave it a discount on the strangeness because I don't know the culture
weird AF. I gave it a discount on the strangeness because I don't know the culture
November 11, 2022
Den kinesiske kultur er spændende og anderledes. Deres live gennem de sidste 100 år er så omskiftelig og barsk. Der er så megen skønhed gemt i alt det grimme og sådan er denne roman også. Den er smuk så mange gode mennesker som alle har gjort andre ondt. Nogle med vilje men de fleste uden forsæt. Hvis du kan lide kinesiske fortællinger vil du også kunne lide denne. Den er ikke så god som Jung chang's vilde svaner eller yu huas at leve men bestemt værd at læse.
October 18, 2009
The book deals with the change from old China to new China and the promises that were made to the people. However this is not a book about politics , this is about how politics affected the people of China. Set in 1995 following the disasterous 1989 demonsatations, you get a real sense of the lost hope and dreams of two generations. Closing factories, unemployment, prostitution, polution its not a book to lift your mood. Of all the books Ive ever read this surely contains the most unluckiest charactors who fail to find fulfillment or happiness in their lives. At every turn when there is a chance of hope fate deals blow after blow.
You wont find a happy ever after and the disappointing ending was no surprise. Many harrowing scenes are written in this novel of rape and sexual encounters which are utterley convincing. I felt my flesh creep and this is a very moving experience for the reader. The old people are dying, the young are leaving and those or stay behind face poverty and life as peasants.
You wont find a happy ever after and the disappointing ending was no surprise. Many harrowing scenes are written in this novel of rape and sexual encounters which are utterley convincing. I felt my flesh creep and this is a very moving experience for the reader. The old people are dying, the young are leaving and those or stay behind face poverty and life as peasants.
December 31, 2014
This book was very different from what I thought it would be. I thought of it as a book of reminiscence but it had a much bitter tone than that.
The author does a good job of comparing life in China before and after communalism - and critically examines whether the aims of the movements have been achieved, and raises a critical question: Are things really better?
We see the world through the eyes of different characters - of people from different walks of life and different SES, and it helps us to question the status quo.
The ending of the book is poetic yet vague. Although I liked the way it had been described - it was sort of abrupt. It gave no closure to the lives of the people and of the 3 main characters in particular.
In the end, I suppose it comes down to your taste in description - whether you like this book or not. If you don't like this style, you will find the book too abstract and dreamy.
The author does a good job of comparing life in China before and after communalism - and critically examines whether the aims of the movements have been achieved, and raises a critical question: Are things really better?
We see the world through the eyes of different characters - of people from different walks of life and different SES, and it helps us to question the status quo.
The ending of the book is poetic yet vague. Although I liked the way it had been described - it was sort of abrupt. It gave no closure to the lives of the people and of the 3 main characters in particular.
In the end, I suppose it comes down to your taste in description - whether you like this book or not. If you don't like this style, you will find the book too abstract and dreamy.
March 17, 2016
I found this a fascinating story about a number of families in a small town in northern China where a factory has been closed down to make way for a hotel. Different generations struggle with the rapid changes in China's government and culture, remembering the early days Communism, the cultural revolution, the democracy movement of 1989 through the present day market economy and industrial development in western China. Though the writer is not Chinese, he spent many years there and has an excellent grasp of the challenges of life in a small rural town. It is very well written.
October 21, 2009
Learnt that you shouldn't judge people as you don't really know their full circumstances, and leant a little about China and its people and the class system. Deals with all aspects of Chinese culture, and the snobbery towards the peasant classes.
Felt I couldn't put this book down as it was so well written and descriptive and could empathise with the main characters and the daily grind of their lives.
Felt I couldn't put this book down as it was so well written and descriptive and could empathise with the main characters and the daily grind of their lives.
September 30, 2014
This is a pretty ambitious book written by a foreigner about China. I kinda like it even though it is not connecting at times. This is a story of people in a community adjusting to the changes that are happening in their surroundings. I like how the stories of each characters were interwoven and how the characterization was played out. One will easily breeze through it as it is just a short read. Recommended for those who wants to get a picture of China from a foreigner's perspective.
June 6, 2022
I really enjoyed this book. I got it from the humane society book sale last year and just picked it up now. Learned a fair amount about the culture and politics of China. How suppression of personal beliefs is so common there. Glad I picked it up.
October 24, 2024
As a China expat of eleven years, I usually look askance at publisher blurbs whenever a book by another China expat appears. But in this instance of "The Drink and Dream Teahouse" the description is apropos. At times I thought I was reading a passage from Mo Yan or another contemporary Chinese writer—this novel is that convincing. Although some lay reviewers have lamented the flat characterization, I found in every one of the characters someone who I had encountered one way or another while in China during much of the same period when Justin Hill was himself there. I was amazed at how well he fleshed out these individuals, defying stereotypes, yet not shying away from cultural traits, including widespread superstition. As a Sinophile, I wanted to like this novel and, perhaps needless to say, I was never disappointed. I found myself caught up in the travails of all the main characters and my empathy was repeatedly aroused with the notable exception of Madame Fan's husband, who is contemptible in every respect. That Hill brings to life downtrodden prostitutes is as remarkable as it is rare. Indeed, I found myself forgetting at times that I wasn't reading a memoir, especially as it related to Liu Bei, who gradually gains most of my concern as a reader. In short, this is a realistic account which nonetheless manages to have dreamlike passages, lines of verse from Tang Dynasty poetry, and ancient sayings sprinkled throughout but never gratuitously. Humor—much of it dark—abounds and with it a pathos of living in a country where one's choices are as limited as one's agency unless good fortune or tremendous determination intercedes. I'm guessing like many readers, I wanted a different ending to this love story but at the same time it is perhaps not as final at it appears. Two days later, I am still mulling over the ending and the trajectory of the lives of these ordinary people living in extraordinary times. Hill has set a very high bar for other aspiring expat writers about China to reach.
February 6, 2021
A story about the lives of several members of a community in the small town of Shaoyang, in China. The settings of the story and characters have a touch of realism, showing the familiarity that the author has with the Chinese culture. The glimpse into the lives of the characters lose the attention of the readers due to an overuse of metaphors, poetry, etc., that the author has written to make the story more exotic. An example of this is when one of the characters lit a gas stove in the early morning. The flame of the gas stove is described as "a hot flower of blue petals in the dim room".
While the plots related to the younger characters are well written, capturing the readers' attention, the older characters appear to be little more than filler, to make the book longer. They are reduced to shuffling elderly people whose only purpose in the story is to be shown cooking, drinking, eating, cleaning, gardening and spitting.
While the plots related to the younger characters are well written, capturing the readers' attention, the older characters appear to be little more than filler, to make the book longer. They are reduced to shuffling elderly people whose only purpose in the story is to be shown cooking, drinking, eating, cleaning, gardening and spitting.
July 11, 2025
Livro deprimente. As personagens não têm qualquer agência: a vida acontece-lhes e elas não reagem, são excessivamente passivas. A narrativa é demasiado descritiva.
Um dos poucos aspectos positivos é que o livro permite compreender um pouco a mentalidade da China nos anos 90 e as consequências de viver num regime comunista após tantos anos.
Importa ainda referir que a capa e o título do livro são bastante enganadores. A capa transmite a ideia de uma história leve, com toques de esperança e felicidade, mas o conteúdo não tem nada disso. Aliás, mal se fala da casa de chá, que afinal é um bordel.
Um dos poucos aspectos positivos é que o livro permite compreender um pouco a mentalidade da China nos anos 90 e as consequências de viver num regime comunista após tantos anos.
Importa ainda referir que a capa e o título do livro são bastante enganadores. A capa transmite a ideia de uma história leve, com toques de esperança e felicidade, mas o conteúdo não tem nada disso. Aliás, mal se fala da casa de chá, que afinal é um bordel.
June 15, 2020
I'll never forgive myself for reading a one star book to its conclusion; I don't know why I didn't just put it down.
I didn't like the prose. Not at all. The rhythms reminded me of a 1960s first-grade primer, like "Dick and Jane". This alternated with overuse of literary devices such as metaphors and anthropomorphism. The characters were flat and I didn't care about any of them.
I didn't like the prose. Not at all. The rhythms reminded me of a 1960s first-grade primer, like "Dick and Jane". This alternated with overuse of literary devices such as metaphors and anthropomorphism. The characters were flat and I didn't care about any of them.
November 3, 2009
I find myself in a perplexing situation about this book. I really enjoyed reading it, but at the same time found it unfulfilling. There is no real ending to the story and it is really just a snippet of the character lives. I am sure it is based on parts of real life in china. I really struggled with the brutality in parts. Police regulary beat and raped. All this is the 90's - I could n't beleive it. The story centres around the closure of the Space Rocket factory and how this affects the lives of the people living the in the vacinity - in particular 3 families. There is alot of anger and acceptance of this is how things are. The choices that characters make are unbelieveable for the western world. Girls picking prostitution as a career, abandonment of children, imprisonment for daring to disagree etc
Parts of this tale left a bad taste in my mouth, but it made me realise that I am glad that I live in a open democratic country.
This story must be read if only to educate people on the situation in China.
Parts of this tale left a bad taste in my mouth, but it made me realise that I am glad that I live in a open democratic country.
This story must be read if only to educate people on the situation in China.
April 16, 2016
I started this book with high hopes...six weeks later I have not even gotten half way through it! I did not enjoy it at all! It appears to cover unrequited love, suicide, work frustration ...you name it...I could not get around the Chinese names and their traditions and perhaps my inability to identify with any of the characters is the reason for my disconnect! A better person then I might be fit to finish the book but I have now given up!! I usually take a book with me everywhere and finish it over the course of a day or two but the only thing I accomplished over these past few weeks was several other "easy" reads and constant annoyance as I would reread a chapter in the hope I would achieve a reading nirvana. Sorry for not recommending this book!
September 24, 2012
Despite the author's experience in China, this is pretty light without much story and light on specific details of place. He relies too much on explicit sex, especially negative experiences with sex which are often cruel to women to be dramatic. The end, where the mother forced into prostitution to help her son, doesn't play true to form when she takes money to go start a business, abandoning the child. The most touching parts are the confessions by several characters about how brutal the social experiments and their affects on the local populace in China had been. He also jumps between heads so its hard to feel like anyone is the protagonist of the story.
December 16, 2016
I can't decide whether this book should have three or four stars. It is a slice of life in China, interesting but quite sad, which is probably why it took me a while to read it. Information about the characters was gradually released through the book, giving insight back to Tiananmen Square as well as the Cultural Revolution, and some of the confusion about what China today stands for. I enjoyed it, but it wasn't compelling reading. In fact, the only time I picked it up really eager to find out what happened next, it finished!
March 5, 2008
Despite the extremely unsatisfying ending of the book, I felt I was able to get a real glimpse of life in the countryside of modern China, with all its poverty and corruption, along with the turmoil carried over from the 1949 and 1989 Communist incidents in China.
I wouldn't recommend the book to anyone who is bothered by endings or violence against women. It's great for Chinese History enthusiasts, however.
I wouldn't recommend the book to anyone who is bothered by endings or violence against women. It's great for Chinese History enthusiasts, however.
September 1, 2013
Justin Hill writes a story based on the lives of Chinese townspeople who are enduring the closing of a steam engine factory that is the source of their economic suuvival. The story is an outstanding look back at the effects of the cultural revolution and the everyday existance of rural Chinese following the communist takeover. Good book to read for anyone interested in Asian society.
February 17, 2011
I waffled between 3 and 4 stars for this. Its well written and an interesting look at fictional characters living in modern day China, but it lacks resolution. It got a four because I enjoyed reading it anyway.
September 9, 2012
Even though this was written by a non-Chinese, it seemed very Chinese to me. Everything about it was believable, especially the bittersweet ending. I was actually hoping for a happier ending, but I suppose if it had been more like that I would have ultimately been disappointed. So, good job.
January 8, 2014
I only have two words that express this book that I can think of: dull and flat. I've read a fair amount of literature based in China or actual accounts and this book doesn't even come close in capturing the spirit of China (good and bad) and especially not the characters. Glad I only paid 50p!
April 4, 2014
I stopped half way. It's a book intended to tell the story of people in Mainland China. I like his writing but I just felt I was being dragged through each chapter. Maybe I'll carry on reading the rest next time.
June 9, 2015
Couldn't finish it
I really wanted this to be wonderful, but I truthfully couldn't get very far. The writing was slow the lack of storyline didn't engage me one bit. Sadly, I'm not going to rate this very high. There was simply no story worth telling.
I really wanted this to be wonderful, but I truthfully couldn't get very far. The writing was slow the lack of storyline didn't engage me one bit. Sadly, I'm not going to rate this very high. There was simply no story worth telling.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 39 reviews