Status Updates From Granta 169: China

阎连科 black pig hair white pig hair: Stop The Pig Violence. this story felt so heavyhanded lmao… the people fighting to serve jail time for the mayor are pigs lining up to be slaughtered while the same thing is literally happening outside… and this fking moron trying to thwart fate at every turn so he can serve jail time lol

莫言 the leftie sickle: what a weird ending tho i guess the reason is both joy and tian kui were victimized by the people of the village at some point

胡须冬 greenland (poem): “when i heard that, i felt a majestic sled dog / spring out from my ribs, freed from / dragging around my life in an empire, / and rush toward the ice sheet.”

胡须冬 song of the bicycle & the fence (poem): “at midnight / the bicycle propels itself, its lonely chain / clicking along with cloud-shaped dolphins / in the starry sky. a lesson on labor movements / surges through the bike frame.”

wu qi, rules of the game (interview): social realism tradition vs proletariat literature (“a success story can never be the story of the true underclass”), dongbei renaissance & dongbei as the prototype of “socialist development”, word of mouth & media publicity seemingly quicker to catch on to the potential of a new author than the critic—implications for the establishment?

郑小琼 birds (poem): “i am listening to the rain decay on the workstations / the restive automatic slider is as lithe as the rain / falling on the branches beyond the city limits and my body / i peel rust from corroded iron in the workshop, between dreaming and gazing / time has rusted, the rain pauses on the birds’ wings”

li jie & zhang jungang, the civilian level (photography): “they are sceptical of the divide between past & present, a distinction which they believe photography has traditionally conspired to emphasise. they do not want to tell stories with their camera. instead, they seek to confirm their intuitions.” these photos are the 东北est part of this entire issue lol

蓝蓝 for pessoa (poem): “odd gauge for a masterpiece: / shy sensitivity. / your love exceeds your words.”

蓝蓝 my cows arrive (poem): “bite by bite, may they grade the meadow / of hard fact, the dark works of their interior / feed the ghosts of my fervent heart.”

i liked the one with the cows grazing as metaphor for the machinations of the subconscious more

王占黑 goodbye, bridge of the east: guy runs around shanghai taking photos of his xhs influencer girl friend until they find themselves back at bridge of the east, a place where they both have formative memories. nostalgia for millennials, thought it was ok

黄梵 cup (poem): “since childhood, this cup has been legless / your hands are wings to fly it through the room / even if you drain it, leaving it nothing / it thinks your lip print is a marriage contract”. my favorite!

黄梵 spinning top (poem): “it disdains caution / never kneels / even though it’s going to fall / it holds its spine straight”. could be read as the history of a life from unyielding youth to tired, betrayed senior

黄梵 new year’s by the sea (poem): “a lighthouse by the sea has no chance to meditate.” liked this for the rly unconventional imagery but unable to take away more than that.

余华 tomorrow i’ll get past it: noooo lmaooo am i the naive mc thinking he still has his entire literary life ahead of him… will i become the naive mc holding on to hope because the alternative is too painful… curse you sun qiang. and you too mianyang

“I was fifty years old at the time and literature was like a pool of dead water in my heart. Sun Qiang’s phone call was like someone tossing a grenade into that pool, setting off an explosion of waves” (224). ruh roh tho sq gives nefarious vibes

min lin, 6 concepts of chinese literature (calligraphy): the pillars of this issue laid bare. nothing that exciting but i like “mythorealism” (apparently coined by yan lianke) and “dongbei renaissance.” calligraphy is in traditional characters not sure if that’s standard

杨知寒 hai shan swimming pool: a sweet & kind of melancholy story about two lonely girls who form a friendship in the liminal space of a local pool. “The float slowly drifts away, it isn’t needed anymore. That year, we were land and sea to each other. Mountains and rivers may shift, but they are always there.” dongbei renaissance writers on top tbh

小海 adrift in the south: a generous, loving, vibrant tribute to the author’s youth which doubles as a portrait of the thankless & taxing work in tech factories. first time i saw someone talk about shenzhen’s flowers; wonder how much of the “land of milk & honey” is left now that it’s primarily known as a tech metropolis

“My teenage years were like wild lychees, growing larger and redder as the weather got warmer” (179).

haohui liu shot in the 1960s, printed today: photos taken by the artist’s grandpa during the oil boom in daqing, heilongjiang, in the eponymous year, which came about due to an international oil embargo. chem techniques make for interesting textures. faves: friends w textured uniforms, girl perched defiantly with guardian lion

班宇 take me out to the ball game: despite the massive betrayal 3/4 of the way thru this is the least sad story so far imo. narrator, dad, & even xiao shubin accept the hand dealt to them w pragmatism approaching grace and try their best to make something of life anyway (going to the games, finding other jobs). choosing to believe this is hopeful

钱佳楠 the piranhas: why is every story in this collection so depressing & impenetrable lol. i found the first part of the story about the anthropomorphized foxtail grass to be more emotionally affecting. that violent image re train & pregnant ladies was shocking. maybe about rapid, careless pace of industrialization?

han zhang picun: the anecdote about the chopped down mulberry was so sad—the more ruthlessly the past is erased the more potent the nostalgia—but i would love to read more stuff by 李文丽（梦雨） or 范雨素

han zhang picun: “‘the low-tech and the low-skilled are on their way out,’ xiao hai said. i thought of a few prickling lines he had posted on wechat: ‘picun, with its surroundings demolished / is like a centipede whose legs are broken / its shivering body wiggles in the directionless frigid wind.’”

邹静之 the excitements of spring: “there’s a time for everything. At the age of twenty, when a herd of oxen couldn’t hold you back, that’s when you fall in love, even if that means going against the political slogans of the time. as a young man, i wanted to learn how to love, but in the end, i did nothing. i wanted to torture myself, but didn’t know where to begin.”

冯立 photography series white nights: don’t know much about photography but i like the one w the people working on the giant panda-shaped shrub and the majestic white peacock next to a traditional building and a cruise. all of these photos feel very non-intrusive

双雪涛 hunter: wtf lmao. my best guess is that there’s something here related to coping with unrealized potential/ambition (his dreams for his daughter vs his own ‘fifth-rate’ career), + utter lack of agency in the trajectory of his life+career (river imagery, attempts to embody the character who is said to ‘rearrange the world all by [himself]’). initially felt more opaque than speedwell for some rzn

“he is afraid of sweet dreams, fears their falseness, fears the moment of waking and realizing he must still endure this happy life, fears understanding that he has committed every conceivable crime but lacks the courage to take responsibility, and that no one even wants him to be held accountable” (52).

张悦然 speedwell: “after bolaño” is all but explicitly stated; glad i read this after 2666 as it would’ve been almost totally incoherent to me otherwise; some parts quite beautiful (ghost sailor + metal girl); haitong+baby scene haunts me—commentary on 2 possible futures?