Stories of friendship, failure, and survival from Xu Zechen, author of “some of the most exciting and energized writing coming out of China now.” (Paul French)
Muyu, a seventeen-year-old from a small village, came to Beijing for his piece of the dream: money, love, a good life. But in the city, daily life for him and his friends—purveyors of fake IDs and counterfeit papers—is a precarious balance of struggle and guile. Surveying the neighborhood from the rooftop of the apartment they all share, the young men play cards, drink beer, and discuss their aspirations, hoping for the best but expecting little more than the comfort of each other’s company. In these connected stories translated from Chinese by Eric Abrahamsen and Jeremy Tiang, Xu’s characters observe as others like them—workers, students, drifters, and the just plain unlucky—get by the best ways they know how: by jogging excessively, herding pigeons, building cars from scraps, and holding their friends close through the miasma of so-called progress.
Feng Nian was thirty. That’s why Uncle and Auntie Feng were worried. When it comes to getting married, age is always a big problem. As old as he was, what was he waiting for? The longer he left it, the lower his market value. And Feng Nian surely understood the marketplace better than any of us. That’ s the main reason he was anxious. We talk about life as if it’s groping for the next stepping stone to get across the river, but actually the vast majority of people see their whole lives laid out clearly. We just replicate what the generation before us did, and the generation before them, and the generation before-before. All these forebears who lived like that, who had to live like that—we can’t all hope for a miracle. Feng Nian wouldn’t be able to stay in Beijing forever. He understood that with his level of talent, ability and luck, he would surely end up like ninety-five percent of people, and he should snatch a couple of mouthfuls of food while he was young, then push the bowl aside and walk away. He was clinging to Beijing, but that was a young person’s game, because everything seems possible when you’re young. No harm lying to yourself for a while, but now it was time to think of settling down, and he needed a reminder that thirty was no longer young. But he wouldn’t accept that. Look at how he trussed himself up in a suit every day, trying to look respectable—that’s how I knew he wasn’t ready to give up, even though there was no sign his luck would turn.
