Status Updates From Láthatatlan ​bolygók: Kínai...

'At this critical historic moment, I am even firmer in my faith that reforming reality requires not only science and technology, but also the belief by all of us that life should be better—and can be made better—if we possess imagination, courage, initiative, unity, love, and hopr as well as a bit of understanding and empathy for strangers. [...]'

[5]


["What Makes Chinese Science Fiction Chinese? – Xia Jia]

'The development of civilization is driven by the curiosity that comoeks us to cross this frontier, to subvert prejudices and stereotypes, and in the process, complete our self-knowledge and growth.

[4]

'Science fiction—to borrow the words of Gilles Deleuze—is a literature always in the state of becoming, a literature that is born on the frontier—the frontier between the known and unknown, magic and science, dream and reality, self and other, present and future, East and West—and renews itself as the frontier shifts and migrates.

[3]

'[...] the Chinese science fiction of the era dating from the 1990s to the present can be read as a national allegory in the age of globalization'

[2]

'Paradoxically, as China actually modernized with the reforms of the Deng Xiaoping era, these enthusiastic dreams of the future gradually disappeared from Chinese science fiction. Readers and writers seem to fall out of romantic, idealistic utopias and back into reality.

[1]

'Paradoxically, as China actually modernized with the reforms of the Deng Xiaoping era, these enthusiastic dreams of the future gradually disappeared from Chinese science fiction. Readers and writers seem to fall out of romantic, idealistic utopias and back into reality.

[1]

'More than a hundred years, the problems facing us are far more complicated and likely not amenable to scientific solutions, but I still believe that science fiction is capable of wedging open small possibilities: to mend the torn generation, to allow different visions and imagined future Chinas to coexist in peace, to listen to one another [and proceed together].'


["The Torn Generation [...]" – Chen Qiufan]

'Three-Body caused science fiction writers and critics to reevaluate Chinese science fiction and China. They realized they had been ignoring changes in the thinking patterns of the Chinese readers. As modernization accelerated its pace, the new generation of readers no longer confined their thoughts to the narrow present as their parents did, but were interested in the future and the wide-open cosmos'

[Liu Cixin]

'After breakfast, as usual, God got up quickly to clean the table and wash the dishes in the kitchen. Standing just outside the kitchen, Yulian shouted: "Don't use detergent if there's no grease on the bowl! Everything costs money. The pittance they pays for your support? Ha!'


["Taking care of God – Liu Cixin]

[...] Three million soldiers can form a million of these gates I've just demonstrated, and these gates can be put together into a whole formation capable of any complex calculation. I call my invention a calculating formation.'

[2/2]

["The Circle" – Liu Cixin]

' "I don't know your names," Jing Ke said, tapping the shoulders of two of the soldiers. "The two of you will be responsible for number input, so I'll call you 'Input One' and 'Input Two'." He pointed to the last soldier. "You will be responsible for number output, so I'll call you 'Output'." He shoved the soldiers to where he wanted them to stand.

[1]

'A lonely golden tower rose from the distant horizon. By dusk, the refugees arrived at its foot. The tower, too, appeared as if it had been on a long journey. Behind it was a deep trench like a surgical incision; the rich, fleshy loam brought up from the depths gave off a burned scent.'

["Grave of the Fireflies" – Cheng Jingbo]

'I sell stories. Special. Expensive. No substitutes. You must come up in a beat-up car. You must bring enough money. No matter what happens, you may never come see me again.'

["Call Girl" – Tang Fei]

'now you've gotten the people off the land and out of the factories, what are you going to do with them? In Europe they went with the path of forcefully reducing everyone's working hours and thus increasing employment opportunities. But this saps the vitality of the economy, you understand? The best way is to reduce the time a certain portion of the population spends living, and then find ways to keep them busy.'

'The folding city was divided into three spaces. [...] Time had been carefully divided and parceled out to separate the populations : five million enjoyed the use of twenty four hours, and seventy-five million enjoyed the next twenty-four hours.'

["Folding Beijing" – Hao Jingfang]

'When I am done telling you these stories, when you're done listening to these stories, I am no longer I, and you are no longer you. In this afternoon, we briefly merged into one. After this, you will always carry a bit of me, and I will always carry a bit of you, even if we both forget this conversation.'

["Invisible Planets" – Hao Jingfang]

'He suggested to the appropriate authorities that the regulations should no longer explain what was fotbidden. Instead, the regulations should set forth what could be said, and how to say it. [...] The List of Sensitive Words was eliminated, and in its plave came the List of Healthy Words.'

'The appropriate authorities explained that the real ID Web Access System was designed to make administration of the Web more convenient and rational and eliminate the serious problems caused by anonymity on the Web. Arvardan was unsure what these "serious problems" were.'

["The Silent City" – Ma Boyong]

'He recalled his birthplace, a small city named Nantes on the shores of the tranquil Loire, where the brilliant pinpricks of the stars reflected in the water resembled an oil painting'

["Night Journey of the Dragon-Horse" – Xia Jia]


[I am elated to see the name of Nantes, a city dear to me in this most unexpected place! :)]

If the plan succeeded, it would be a step to bring about the kind of golden age envisioned by Confucius millenia ago: "And then men would care for all elders as if they were their own children. The aged would grow old and die in security; the youthful would have opportunities to contribute and prosper; and children would grow up under the guidance and protection of all [...]everyone would be cared for and loved.'
[2]

'[...] they were working on developping a web-based system that would allow anyone with some idle time and interest in helping others to register to volunteer. Then the volunteers would be able to sign on to Ah Fus [remotely operated robots] in homes across the country to take care of elders, children, parents, pets, and to help in other ways.

[1]

'After dinner, Tongtong turned on the video wall to play some games. The world in the game is so different from the world around me, she thought. In the game, a person just died. They didn't get sick, and they didn't sit on a wheelchair. Behind her, Mom and Grandpa continued to argue about the caretaker.'

[« Tongtong's summer » – Xia Jia]

'Ghost Street was built to entertain the tourists, and all the ghosts were their toys. But I'm just a toy for Xiao Qian.
Pretending that the fake is real only makes the real seem fake.'

[A Hundred Ghosts Parade Tonight – Xia Jia]

'I imagine these buildings growing as fast as cancer cells, finally settling into the form they have today. Inside the appartments, it's always dark because there's so little space between the buildings that tenants in buildings next to each other can shake hands through the windows. The alleyways are narrow like capillaries and follow no discernible pattern.'

[Short story "The Flower of Shazui"]

'The biggest fear is for someone else to understand what you really fear.'

[The Fish of Lijiang – Chen Qiufan]

****


See also:
The Factory– H. Oyamada
The Magic Mountain – T. Mann
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep – PKD
The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch – PKD
Algorithms for Love – K. Liu
Idéal – T. Hayman & B. Chaubard
A Distant Neighbourhood – J. Taniguchi

The Year of the Rat – Chen Qiufan
****

See also:
Dr Bloodmoney – PKD
The Penultimate Truth – PKD
War Game – PKD

Jacob's Ladder (film)

'[...] I had deliberately failed my Classical Chinese exam so I could stay in school. I hated the thought of looking for a job, renting an apartment, getting to work at nine A.M. just so I could look forward to five P.M., fealing with office politics, etc., etc. School was much more agreeable: I got to download music and movies foe free, the cafeteria was cheap [...].'