What are you reading?

[Woodford]

Just finished 骆驼祥子, and...I must confess that it was way better than I expected it to be. One of my favorite aspects of the book is that it contains an afterword, written by Lao She himself, about how he wrote the story. He says that he's personally quite satisfied with it, he put a lot of work into it, and he feels good about showing it to the world, basically. And that really shows. He did a lot of research, even asking a friend to help teach him some phrases in the old Beijing dialect so that he could insert them in the book and make it feel more authentic. And I think that's the most painful part--there was a scattering of places where I just couldn't understand what was being said. A lot of words weren't in the Pleco dictionaries I own, and even when they were, Pleco had them labeled as "dated" or "literary." That's not to say that the book is extremely hard. Lao She's writing is, famously, quite simple and unadorned. But I'd say that the old dialect is prevalent enough to be a bit of an annoying encumbrance. I typically spend 5-7 minutes reading a page of a Chinese book, depending on how difficult it is. This book slowed me down to 8 minutes.

One of the most interesting parts of the experience was reading along with WeChat community notes, discovering what native Chinese speakers think about the book. Surprisingly, many of them had trouble understanding parts of the book, too. Just a lot of, "Who was this character again, and what role does he play in the story? I can't remember." Or, "What on earth does this phrase mean?" When I struggle to understand a book as a language learner, I'm very quick to place all the blame on the fact that I'm a non-native reader. But actually, reading can be a challenge for natives, too. People's explanatory comments helped me understand a lot of things and gave me food for thought.

Even so, the book was otherwise readable, quite beautiful in its depiction of certain scenes, deep and scholarly, and interesting in its plotline. The main character, Camel Xiangzi, is a rickshaw puller who wants nothing more than to buy himself a new rickshaw (rather than renting one from others), but he never seems to have enough money to do so. He lives in horrible poverty and constantly faces setbacks and disasters. Because of his singular desire to hoard more money and use other people for his own benefit, he plays the role of an unlikeable loser, as though Lao She is saying, "Don't be like this guy." It's a really dark novel that reminds me a little bit of Yu Hua's "To Live," except in that story, I think Fugui becomes way more relatable. But anyway, that's no accident--Lao She deliberately wrote the character that way, and he tells a really engaging story.

 

To sum it up, I'd say that if I were the kind of person to read novels more than once (and I'm not), then I would probably read this one again! It's a rewarding book if you approach it with patience.

Now I am moving on to 我曾走在崩溃的边缘 by 余敏洪, which is an autobiographical work about an entrepreneur who started a famous education company in China called "New Oriental." Along with that, I'm reading a very short and fun book, apparently aimed at kids: 汉字就是这么来的 by 孟琢. I am interested in learning the basics of how Chinese characters came to exist.

[lordsuso]

Here is a recap of 3 short books I've read in the past weeks:

 

- 聚散兩依依 by 琼瑶: A romance novel by Qiong Yao. I can't say I enjoyed this one. Qiong Yao is great for learning (in particular the way she spams adjectives) but I think this will be my last book of hers. Her books are interesting for the cultural insights surrounding love and family, but this one was just too soap opera-ish for me.

- 白馬嘯西風 by 金庸: A wuxia novella by Jin Yong. Not as hard as I expected. The vocabulary wasn't really a problem, the only minor issues were the longer sentences (compared to Gu Long) and some words used in a secondary meaning I wasn't familiar with (但 meaning only instead of but, 便 as 就, 那里 as 如何, etc.). I don't know how much harder his novels are, but I think I'll give it a year or so until I read one (書劍恩仇錄 most probably) to have a smoother experience. I don't know how to describe it, but the prose is closer to what I had envisioned before starting reading in Chinese, Gu Long and particularly Qiong Yao felt more familiar, closer to Western prose. Other than the beautiful ending, I absolutely adored the first half of this novella, which focuses on the setting and characters, the second half is more action-heavy and the plot becomes a bit messy.

 

- 秃鹤不是一只鹤 by 曹文轩: A short story for kids by Cao Wenxuan from the collection 草房子, which contains 9 stories that share characters and setting. A very heartwarming story with vivid characters, but in the end not the most engaging read for adults. Still I might read another story in the future, it's very good for learning.

 

I wanted to read 活着 by 余华 next, but I can't escape Gu Long's pulpy charm, so I picked up 血鹦鹉 by 古龙/黄鹰: A wuxia-horror novel by Gu Long, although apparently most of it was written by another author called Huang Ying. This is the first book in the 驚魂六記 series, and from what I've heard 吸血蛾 (and to a lesser degree 黑蜥蜴 and 无翼蝙蝠) are also worth checking out. Like the title says, it's about a parrot made of blood that grants three wishes. So far it's as fun as I expected.

 

The next books I want to read:

活着 by 余华

金刚经说什么 by 南怀瑾: Non-fiction book explaining the Buddhist diamond sutra.
病毒 by 倪匡: My first attempt at science-fiction.
舍不得看完的中国史 by 渤海小吏: Non-fiction history book.

[Woodford]

On 11/28/2023 at 2:52 AM, lordsuso said:

白馬嘯西風 by 金庸: A wuxia novella by Jin Yong. Not as hard as I expected.

This comment is interesting to me, because I have a four-volume set from Jin Yong waiting on my bookshelf (射雕英雄传), and though I've improved my reading skills significantly (by working through about 45 books at this point), it's always looked intimidating. I always tell myself I'll get to it later! The language seems very stylish and not much like "everyday" modern Chinese. But if it's easier than it at first seems, that's encouraging!

[Publius]

On 10/13/2023 at 9:13 PM, Luxi said:

I just finished reading Ge Fei (格非)'s "Peach Blossom Paradise" (《人面桃花》)

That's quite a feat!  Very flowery language and lots of literary allusions.

 

Ge Fei may be a good writer but he is really really bad at math ?.  These are my proofreading notes:

[lordsuso]

On 11/30/2023 at 7:53 PM, Woodford said:

I have a four-volume set from Jin Yong waiting on my bookshelf (射雕英雄传)

 

I would also be intimidated to start such a long series, that's why I chose a novella first (白馬嘯西風 sits at ~60k hanzi, for reference 活着 by 余华 has ~80k). But if you've read 45+ books my guess is that you are over-qualified haha (this was my 6th book). It wasn't my first wuxia book however, reading two Gu Long novels beforehand probably helped. The tricky part is that the problem wasn't the vocabulary, so I couldn't rely on the pop-up dictionary to get unstuck like I usually do, I actually had to use the translation tool quite often to get a sense of what a sentence meant and try to parse it from there (often unsuccesfully). But after the initial warm-up pages it was an enjoyable read.

[Luxi]

On 12/1/2023 at 5:40 PM, Publius said:

These are my proofreading notes:

 

Lol! I didn't spot a single one of those. more than poor maths a result of writing a novel in fits and starts,  late in the evenings, in-between reading students' assignments, marking papers, preparing classes...

 

It didn't feel like a feat at all! I enjoyed the novel so much that may read it again. Of course, most of the literary allusions passed way above my head (except for Part 2 bringing me into 水浒传 territory). I have a workable background on the history of the period, it helped a lot. 

[Woodford]

Just finished 我曾走在崩溃的边缘, which is the autobiography of Yu Minhong, founder of a large education company in China called 新东方. In the beginning (1993), he taught students how to pass English exams so that they could go to foreign countries and attend foreign schools. He tells the story of all the crazy things that happened along the way as he expanded his company. For example, he was robbed and almost killed at one point. He also got into a huge legal fight with the American ETS (Educational Testing Service), who sued Yu for an enormous amount of money because they didn't want Yu's company reusing their old exams for practice; ETS likes to recycle the same questions every year and change them only slightly (which, honestly, also annoys a lot of Americans). Yu offered to pay the ETS fees and enter into a strategic partnership, but they refused. After discovering that their exams were going to be pirated anyway, with or without Yu, they gave up and decided to partner with him after all. He also had a difficult time dealing with local government officials, police, and competitors who were concerned that he was taking away their business.

What really stands out about the book is the bluntness of the author. Extremely 坦诚. Holds nothing back. Upon discovering that his company could only continue to grow if it stopped being family-operated, he went through the drama of firing his entire family from the business. He ruthlessly evaluates his subordinates, his friends, and himself. In order to expand into the New York Stock Exchange, he realized he needed to hire a Chinese-American executive. He found someone he liked and wanted to hire, but he and the board of directors held a heated argument about whether he was "too ugly." 

 

Ultimately, the book was really plain and readable, and it was interesting to read about the strategic decisions that went into building and expanding a large company. As someone who is not a billionaire CEO, it's a new perspective for me. His advice is to be a life-long learner, don't settle into a comfort zone, take care of your health, and be transparent/straightforward in your dealings with people. Overall, I liked the book.

I also finished 汉字就是这么来的, only to find out that it's part of a series that consists of 6 books. So I purchased the whole set (the priciest purchase I've ever made on WeChat), and I'm about to finish volume 2. The first volume shows you how Chinese characters are made, the different kinds of Chinese characters, etc. It makes a lot of use of ancient sources and poetry, and it traces the evolution of characters through each of the major revisions (甲骨文，金文，篆书，隶书，楷书，等等). The next 5 books simply explain a wide range of characters--animals, people, plants, food, geography, etc. There are a lot of nice illustrations, and even when the book makes use of ancient literature, it almost always translates it into modern Chinese prose, which I really appreciate. The book is actually aimed at school-aged kids, but it's surprisingly challenging to read, because of the archaic subject matter. 

 

Next, to return to fiction, I'm going to try a famous book called 一地鸡毛 by 刘震云. I don't know much about it, but it looks like it might be good! Prompted by my exchange with @lordsuso above, I'm emboldened to read my Jin Yong books before too long.

[PerpetualChange]

I finally finished.  青铜葵花 by 曹文轩. It's just the 2nd Chinese novel I read this year, the first being 草房子 by the same author. 

I didn't love it. In fact, it's the first 曹文轩 that I read which really just did not seem to hit my adult brain in any meaningful way in particular. I found the characters to be pretty uninteresting, one dimensional, overly "wholesome". Previous 曹文轩 novels I read seem to be a little bit more mature than you'd perhaps expect, but I couldn't say the same thing about this one. 

 

Next up, a total change of course. Going to be reading Ubik by Phillip K. Dick. I'll get back to another Chinese novel some other time, if I can find something that interests me. 

[sanchuan]

On 12/2/2023 at 9:14 PM, Woodford said:

I'm going to try a famous book called 一地鸡毛 by 刘震云.

There was a very good film made from this, too, if memory serves; you might want to look it up. Can't remember the details right now, but it used to be easily available online (in one tube or the other...).

[Jive Turkey]

I just finished 迴響 by 東西 (aka 田代琳). It's labeled as a murder mystery novel, and it is one of the winners of the 2023 Mao Dun Literature Prize. Chinese readers of murder mysteries (i.e, 推理小說) have told me in the past that there are few successful Chinese examples of the genre, and that most Chinese who like murder mysteries read translated ones. 

 

The protagonist is 冉咚咚, a 41-year-old professionally successful female police detective who is investigating the murder of a rich guy's mistress. Parallel to the murder mystery plot is the unravelling of the protagonist's marriage, which seems to be driven by a.) the protagonist's paranoia and extreme shit testing, and b.) the fact that her literature professor husband seems to have no backbone in dealing with her. 

 

Some observations about the novel:

 

1. It is less corny/hokey than Japanese murder mysteries that I've read in Chinese (e.g., those by 東野圭吾). 

 

2. IMO, it's not really a 推理小說. I say this because all of the case-breaking turning points unfold not based on details that were previously dangled in front of the reader, but because of new information and characters that are suddenly presented just as parts of the case break open. To me, foreshadowing and prediction of who dunnit are part of the reader experience of this genre, and if those elements are lacking, then it doesn't really adhere to the genre. I think it causes a lack of suspense.

 

3. I also don't think the secondary plot regarding the protagonist's marriage is all that profound or riveting. It covers some themes like the passion in a marriage declining after having a child, and what I'd interpret as a husband being too much of a nice guy toward his career-driven wife for the marriage to stay healthy. But I didn't think these themes were constructed with prize-winning skill. 

 

4. Language-wise, the book is not particularly hard. Unlike a lot of Chinese fiction, the writer does not do the obligatory, lengthy (and pointless? ?) exposition of scenery or whatever at the start of every chapter. If you can read 平凡的世界 or 活著, then this book won't be too hard for you. You'll learn more vocabulary about police investigations and psychology. One thing that seems a bit different about the book is that back and forth dialogue is frequently presented within one paragraph, with no quotation marks, and frequently without marking like 他/她說... . I can't recall any other Chinese novels I've read that didn't follow a dialogue format similar to that of English novels, where each speaker's turn in the dialogue is bracketed with quotation marks, and where each speaker's turn tends to get it's own paragraph. This peculiarity forced me to slow down my reading in some places. 

 

5. In order to not spoil the plot for anybody who might read the novel, I'll just say that the murder turns out to be a conspiracy. One could interpret the author's decision to construct the murder as a conspiracy as some sort of social commentary on outsourcing/sub-contracting. But to anybody who knows anything about actual murder cases, and to anybody who is into reading true crime, the conspiracy in this novel just seems contrived and implausible. 

 

Other than 平凡的世界, this is the only novel I've read off of the Mao Dun Literature Prize winner's list. I liked 平凡的世界, but I'm less impressed by 迴響.

[Johnny-5]

On 12/6/2023 at 12:37 AM, Jive Turkey said:

Chinese readers of murder mysteries (i.e, 推理小說) have told me in the past that there are few successful Chinese examples of the genre, and that most Chinese who like murder mysteries read translated ones. 

Quite true, I've probably posted similar observations/complaints on this or similar threads.... Personally I quite enjoy the 东野圭吾 novels I've read, but he is not the best mystery writer. I mean he's real hit-or-miss and most of the ones of his I really like were not mysteries. Like there was one at a ski resort that I distinctly recall disliking because I'd just read another of his mysteries that was actually pretty good.

 

On 12/6/2023 at 12:37 AM, Jive Turkey said:

Other than 平凡的世界, this is the only novel I've read off of the Mao Dun Literature Prize winner's list. I liked 平凡的世界, but I'm less impressed by 迴響.

I've never felt that award lists were worth the paper they're printed on. Afterall they need to print lists every year, but what if nothing is actually wort awarding every year?

[Lu]

On 12/5/2023 at 5:37 PM, Jive Turkey said:

One thing that seems a bit different about the book is that back and forth dialogue is frequently presented within one paragraph, with no quotation marks, and frequently without marking like 他/她說... . I can't recall any other Chinese novels I've read that didn't follow a dialogue format similar to that of English novels, where each speaker's turn in the dialogue is bracketed with quotation marks, and where each speaker's turn tends to get it's own paragraph.

That's funny, I've seen this type of dialogue writing so often in Chinese books that I started to wonder if it was an exclusively Chinese thing. (It's not, other languages do it too occasionally.) Many Chinese authors I've read vary between using quotation marks and separate paragraphs, and unmarked dialogue. It must be a style thing with a certain effect.

 

I'm reading 《誓鸟》 by Zhang Yueran. I've read many of her short stories and her recent novel 《茧》; this is an early novel, and more similar to the short stories than to 《茧》. Some magical realism, some young women who love their men too much, and some overbearing men who don't appreciate their women. And a dead father. The story is a chain of stories, all connected, from one person to her lover to her ex to the ex's lover to the ex's parents... It does interesting things in constructing various unconventional families, or family-like structures. At one point, a woman pregnant with her lover (who cast her aside) lives with a eunuch who loved the pregnant woman's (female) ex, and the eunuch feels this is the closest he'll ever come to having his own family and is pleased with the situation.

[jannesan]

On 11/28/2023 at 3:52 PM, lordsuso said:

白馬嘯西風 by 金庸

 

I picked this up because of your post and it was also not as hard as expected for me. Read through it in a couple of sessions and it was more engaging than the last couple of books I read in Chinese, very encouraging! The story js very simple and linear, the writing mostly straightforward, just some unfamiliar language that seemed a bit obscure to me. I can’t really tell why it was so engaging, I think I like 古龍’s style of writing more. Maybe I just like 武俠 in general, I think I’ll continue with some books in the genre to test that hypothesis.

[lordsuso]

On 12/15/2023 at 3:32 PM, jannesan said:

I picked this up because of your post

I am happy to hear that! I actually picked it up because I saw the recommendation in some old post in here (I can't remember the user), apparently it's his most accessible novella. I also love Gu Long's writing style, but I suspect (and hope) Jin Yong's novels to be deeper and less one-dimensional. If Woodford decides to attempt 射雕英雄传 in 2024 I might try to follow along, it could be fun to do some sort of read-along to discuss who is the most rightheous warrior and the most peerless beauty in the jianghu.

 

[Lu]

On 12/15/2023 at 6:44 PM, lordsuso said:

it could be fun to do some sort of read-along to discuss who is the most rightheous warrior and the most peerless beauty in the jianghu

Yes yes, do it! Make it a Book of the Month Whenever, like here . I don't think I own 射雕英雄传, but I can probably borrow it, perhaps I'll join in if the timing works out.

[lordsuso]

Here is a quick summary of the last two books I've read:
- 血鹦鹉 by 古龙/黄鹰: A wuxia-horror-mystery novel by Gu Long, although most of it was ghost-written by Huang Ying. Other than the very lame ending, the story was ok. I enjoyed the fight scenes and super-natural elements, although there were moments where I wasn't sure what was going on (in particular there was a very frustrating passage concerning a weird "living" painting). The main issue was the writing, the author does a remarkable job imitating Gu Long's style, but something is off, and you don't really get a sense of where the plot wants to go so it didn't hook me.
- 活着 by 余华: Slightly harder than Gu Long and Qiong Yao, but still pretty accessible. I really enjoyed the writing and the story, but man is it depressing.
- Not a Chinese book, but I wanted to share that I'm halfway through Don Quixote (in Spanish, because I'm Spanish) and it's the best thing I've ever read!

 

Here is a quick recap on the manga side. I read multiple at once because I like to rotate between arcs, and I recently finished two of them:
- Dragon Ball: This was the first thing I picked up in Chinese, and ~1year later I am sad it's over. The Dragon Ball anime was a huge part of my childhood, so it's been quite emotional to revisit the characters and to finally understand what the hell happened (I watched the episodes completely out of order as a kid haha).
- Yugami: Really wonderful, it's one of the best portrayals of friendship I have seen. 

 

My next book is going to be 舍不得看完的中国史 by 渤海小吏, a non-fiction history book. I want to read some 鲁迅's short stories in-between chapters, are there any must-read ones that you recommend? After that, I will probably attempt 射鵰英雄傳 by 金庸. It's going to be a pretty long journey, so I followed @Lu's advice and made a dedicated thread here so that others can join in. I am looking at you @Woodford, this is partly your fault after all haha.

[Woodford]

I just finished the whole 6 volume set of 汉字就是这么来的 (it's only about 200K characters, about the size of an average book). It pretty effectively answered the question, "Where did the different Chinese characters come from?" It worked through a pretty impressive set of characters, encompassing things like animals, clothing, food, the human body, weapons, ancient artifacts, nature, etc. It traces through the evolution of each character, starting from the "oracle bone script" era until the most recent simplification under Mao's China. The different categories of characters are explained and illustrated throughout: self-explanatory, pictographic, pictographic-phonetic, ideographic, mutually explanatory, and phonetic loan characters. By far, the most common characters seem to be the "pictographic-phonetic" ones, which have two different components: one to signify pronunciation and one to signify meaning. It was a rather fun read, aimed at school-aged kids and featuring a lot of pictures. But it's also filled with many obscure characters, rare and ancient chengyu, historical data, and classical Chinese (fortunately, the author always translates it or explains it in modern Mandarin). So even though I'm accustomed to reading Chinese books for adults, this book stretched my skills and expanded my knowledge quite well.

I also finished 一地鸡毛. As it turns out, 一地鸡毛 is the name of a short story, and the book was actually a compilation of short stories. Each story is full of complicated interactions between a large cast of characters. Sometimes it's about an office in the city. At other times, it's about people struggling in the countryside. The characters tend to be quite petty and self-serving, trying to politically outmaneuver the other characters. I had a really difficult time remembering who was who, and who did what to whom. It wasn't my favorite book, but it held my interest well enough, and the author uses a lot of humor. What was really interesting was that some short stories were actually spin-offs of prior stories. I would think, "Wait....these characters seem familiar. Oh--this is a continuation of a different story!" Much time is spent following a character named Xiao Lin, a city dweller who can't seem to get promoted at work, and can barely afford life's basic necessities, living with a wife who is constantly enraged at him. They are desperate to get ahead, seeking to bribe and/or win over the right people. It was odd--even though they're not particularly likeable people, I found myself cheering them on each time they advanced in life, and frustrated every time they met a setback. Maybe a lot of Chinese readers see themselves in the story, being able to relate to the struggles of establishing a career and making it in life.

 

[Lu]

Reading 《长安的荔枝》 by 马伯庸. Ma writes stories about ancient times with a modern twist, basically. I've read a few of his short stories in translation and found them very funny, but of course these were stories that had been selected for understandability for people with not a lot of knowledge of Chinese history. So reading a full book was an experiment for me: 1) would it be too difficult with all the ancient China words; and 2) would I find it funny without having been steeped in the cultural background?

 

As to 1), yes it is a bit difficult. Lots of Tang dynasty vocabulary, some classical Chinese phrasings, lots of extremely polite speaking with its specific use of words. I haven't looked up as many words in a long time. Plenty of terms (names of ranks, of ministries, etc) that I just skip over without looking them up as long as I understand what's going on. There was one entire paragraph that I couldn't make head or tail of a single sentence of, and that I'm pretty sure that was actually a sex scene consisting of an extended metaphor with extremely intricate turns of phrase.

As to 2), I don't find it as funny as the stories I've read, and I think that's because I'm not Chinese and am not living a Chinese life. I still enjoy it a lot though.

 

The setup: 李善德, a low-level official in the capital, is tasked with bringing lychees from Guangdong to Chang'an for 杨贵妃's birthday. But lychees go bad in three days and the journey takes weeks. If he fails, he dies.

 

The first half of the book reminded me of The Martian: a man is faced with a difficult challenge (stay alive until he can get back to Earth / bring lychees to Chang'an), with a major handicap (he's on Mars / it's the Tang dynasty, before the invention of refrigerated trucks). Fortunately, he is smart and knowledgable, and he has a character advantage that turns out very helpful (relentless optimism and humour / genuine friendliness and a kind heart). 李善德 thinks, experiments with different methods, leans on the help and ideas of new friends, and (of course) eventually finds a way it can be done. But then there is still half the book to go, so I was curious what setbacks he would encounter and conquer next. Turns out that unlike The Martian, this is literature, and it says things about living in the world and in society and what power and a large, intricately organised strate does to how people relate to each other. I haven't finished yet. I'm pretty sure that (just like The Martian) this is the kind of book where the hero eventually succeeds, but I don't know yet at what cost.

 

All in all this is a gripping book. Sends my heart racing all the time with new developments. Thoroughly recommended if you're up for the difficulty of the language.

 

ETA: I just saw that Woodford read it too! I hadn't realised. I picked it up in a bookstore at the informed recommendation of a Ma Boyong fan who happened to be there as well.

[Woodford]

On 1/31/2024 at 5:05 AM, Lu said:

Reading 《长安的荔枝》 by 马伯庸.

 

I remember reading this one about 15 books ago, and I was so excited for it, because I really enjoyed another book he wrote (草原动物园).

 

I remember that it had a really strong plot, but the language was shockingly difficult. It was a tedious reading process at times. I thought the brutality of the Chinese emperor was rather amusing ("If you fulfill this mission, you will be showered with glory and honor! If you fail, then you will die!"), but it certainly added tension to the story. And if I recall correctly, the main character wasn't interested in attempting the mission, but through some kind of misunderstanding, he got sucked into it anyway.

That book has been one of several reminders along my reading journey--reminding me that Chinese will always be my second language, and it will always be significantly less comfortable to read than English. Even now, I'm reading a very popular autobiography by the journalist Chai Jing, called 看见. I believe that (as in most cases) the difficulty of the language will greatly decrease as the book continues, but the first several pages have just been a nightmare. I think it assumes a lot of prior knowledge of Chinese culture, celebrities, TV and broadcasting stuff, popular TV shows, government bureaucracies that govern media, etc. 

 

On 1/31/2024 at 5:05 AM, Lu said:

Plenty of terms (names of ranks, of ministries, etc) that I just skip over without looking them up as long as I understand what's going on.

I think this is the key here; I need to maybe transition to this way of reading, rather than reaching for a dictionary every single time there's a word that I'm not sure about. After all, that's how I do it in my own native English! I'm aware of the terms "colonel," "sergeant," "lieutenant," "admiral," or whatever, but I don't think too much about them, and I can't work out exactly what each rank entails, but I've never needed to care.

[Lu]

On 1/31/2024 at 4:23 PM, Woodford said:

I thought the brutality of the Chinese emperor was rather amusing ("If you fulfill this mission, you will be showered with glory and honor! If you fail, then you will die!")

It's not even that the emperor is brutal like this, more that the apparatus as a whole becomes this, because the emperor is almighty. Failing to do what he orders, especially when it comes to such a simple request as bringing him some tasty fruit, must be an intentional rebellion and thus a grave offense. The emperor likely won't care enough to do anything personally, it will be the state apparatus that will enhance his disappointment to a death penalty.

 

Which ties into your second point:

On 1/31/2024 at 4:23 PM, Woodford said:

the main character wasn't interested in attempting the mission, but through some kind of misunderstanding, he got sucked into it anyway.

The lychee assignment is kicked like a hot potato from one ministry to the next department, because they all realise it's impossible and don't want to get saddled with it. When it arrives at a department that can't kick it sideways any further, it gets kicked downwards, and when it eventually can't be kicked any further down, the low-level officials working in that office unanimously vote to give it to the one guy who is out that morning. (I was reminded of the 'bathroom rightists' (or what was the term) of the Cultural Revolution: every department has to identify the rightist in their midsts, because the rightists are everywhere, but who should they point to? Everyone is looking at each other uneasily, and then when one goes to the bathroom the others quickly decide that that person should be it.) And they still have to trick him into accepting it.

 

And all these departments and ministries kick the assignment sideways and then down, because nobody has the guts to tell the emperor it's a ridiculous request. The emperor probably doesn't even realise that it's impossible, he just thought, lychees, that would be nice. Some people very close to the emperor might say no to things that are wildly unreasonable, but not to a simple request like this, that will not cost a lot of lives or expenses, so they just leave it be.

 

The whole story is so cruel.

 

Can you elaborate on 《草原动物园》? It didn't interest me when I read about it, but I'm likely wrong about that.