What are you reading?

[Geiko]

On 11/3/2017 at 2:49 PM, Lu said:

Zhang Yueran, 'Weird Auntie', fairy tale within a fairy tale. I haven't read a lot of Zhang Yueran but I like what I have read. Not sure how to describe her genre, it's not really magical realism, it's more introducing something fairytale-like into the real world. Modern literary fairytales, perhaps.

 

 

Quote

 

On 3/6/2018 at 10:56 PM, Lu said:

霓路, short stories by 张悦然. Zhang is sometimes pure teenage (or twenties) angst, sometimes modern fairytales, and sometimes angst told literarily. Even with the angst the literary value is enough to keep it interesting, in my opinion.

 



These two quotes caught my attention, what Lu described really seemed the type of literature I like to read, so when I found a book written by 张悦然 in my library, I borrowed it. The book is《十爱》, ten short stories that talk about love, loss, unhealed wounds that sometimes can even lead you to madness, all with a little touch of magic intermingled. For example, in the first story 跳舞的人们都已长眠山下，the main character is about to marry, when she receives the visit of her deceased exboyfriend, who doesn't want her to get married to someone else. 昼若夜房间, on the other hand, seems to be a sad story about loss, but then you discover that some trauma in the past has caused the characters to become crazy and all end up in a spiral of madness. 

The style of the author is simple, it's an easy book to read in Chinese, and the stories are also simple but moving. I recommend it! And I'll definitely read more of her books in the near future. 

 

(You can find more about this author on the website Paper Republic. One of the ten tales of this compilation was chosen as book of the month in the Writing Chinese (Leeds) site.)

 

[Lu]

Of the various things I am getting ouf my 'read all the translated literature' exercise of the past year and a half, the loveliest one is when people pick up authors because of what I wrote about them and then like them. Thanks for posting this, glad you like Zhang Yueran!

[Luxi]

I part read "River, Shore" (河岸) by Su Tong (苏童) in Howard Goldblatt's translation. The English translation has the rather cringeworthy title "The Boat to Redemption", is this another misleading title imposed by publishers? The novel, set during the more settled years of the Cultural Revolution, is in part a coming-of-age story, in part sociopolitical satire, and in part (or so it seems from the translation) a rather dull melodrama.

 

I enjoyed the first third of the book, where the political and social background, and the main characters (15 year old Dongliang and his father) are nicely drawn. The absurdity of the Cultural Revolution is clear, and so is the conflict-rich contrast between the folk from the Sparrow River barge fleet and the people of Milltown on the shore. The main characters, especially the much-troubled Dongliang, are well-fleshed, and so is the complex relationship between him and his father - and him and the whole world, for that matter. The writing is good, full of incisive observations and acerbic humour, and with subtle soft poetical undertones.  

 

Unfortunately, the plot changes course along the way, continuity falls overboard. The still coming of age Dongliang, now 26 (!), has become  as tedious as a scratched vinyl left to play unattended. The writing, characters and ideas hopelessly derail into mush, as if written for one of those traditional drama series in Chinese TV. 

This drop in quality seemed strange and uncharacteristic for Su Tong. With my Kindle marking 75%, I went to investigate and eventually found this rather enlightening blog entry :
https://musingsofaliterarydilettante.wordpress.com/tag/the-boat-to-redemption/  

 

Basically, what it says is: according to people who read the original and its translation, the English translation departs quite strongly from the Chinese novel. According to the explanation offered by Su Tong, because of publishers' pressure Goldblatt's English translation was based on a preliminary draft, not on the final version published in Chinese. I don't think this explains everything, but it goes some way there. Perhaps I'll eventually go back and read the Chinese version - or perhaps I'll read 'Rice' instead, but I'll stay away from Goldblatt's translations in the future. 

 

To compensate, I then went on to read Liu Cixin's "Taking Care of God" (thank you @Lu!) which sounded more like my type of literature. I read it in Chinese and enjoyed it. A very original plot, at times very funny and with interesting insights. The language is easy to read, despite a few technical terms (literal translations of their English counterparts). I must admit, I don't like Liu Cixin's writing style much, but I do like his stories and will be reading more of them.

[GregO]

I just finished listening to 追风筝的人 - the Chinese translation of the novel Kite Runner. While I normally prefer books that have not been translated into Chinese, I definitely enjoyed this book. Since it is not a Chinese story it doesn't give you insights into China's culture or history, etc. On the other hand it is based on the life of a boy/man from Afghanistan and sheds some  light on Afghani customs and history. In any case it is a story of redemption that is not too difficult to listen to or read.

 

I am close to finishing reading 血鹦鹉 by 古龙 which is not too different from others of his that I have read. It does, however, tend to read more like a gory, who dun it type of story. In any case, it is not too difficult and In my opinion, worth a read if you like the genre. 

[Lu]

On 7/30/2018 at 4:04 PM, Luxi said:

Basically, what it says is: according to people who read the original and its translation, the English translation departs quite strongly from the Chinese novel. According to the explanation offered by Su Tong, because of publishers' pressure Goldblatt's English translation was based on a preliminary draft, not on the final version published in Chinese. I don't think this explains everything, but it goes some way there. Perhaps I'll eventually go back and read the Chinese version - or perhaps I'll read 'Rice' instead, but I'll stay away from Goldblatt's translations in the future.

I strongly disagree with Howard Goldblatt's style of translation. If you want to be an author, just write your own novel, don't go around rewriting others'. I came across this interesting review the other day, on what Goldblatt has done to Ma Bole's Second Life by Xiao Hong.

[Luxi]

13 hours ago, Lu said:

I came across this interesting review the other day, on what Goldblatt has done to Ma Bole's Second Life by Xiao Hong.

 

That's abominable! Really sad, with Xiao Hong being long dead and whoever inherited her rights obviously not caring enough to put a foot down. At least this time HG acts openly as "second author" but, really, what right has he to do that? What lack of respect to the original author! Xiao Hong would have been strongly opposed to such interference with her work even if unfinished.

 

HG has done so many 'translations', look at his Wikipedia page.  Why are exposing reviews confined to the obscurity of private blogs? Why is it all so hush-hush?  I wish some big literary figure in China would sue him! 

 

I have the original Ma Bole's Second Life (马伯乐 ) but have not read it. I really struggled with Xiao Hong's 生死场 ("Field of Life and Death"), beautiful but very hard to read, but this one seems much easier to read. Now that I know more about it, it seems like good Summer reading. The ebook is still free in Duokan:

http://www.duokan.com/book/406

That's the one I have and can't see much difference with the 'pay' versions.

[Pauleta_Smith]

韩少功 Han Shaogong's 马桥词典 Maqiao cidian 

[murrayjames]

I am back from a long absence with a reading update. Since my last post, I have read: 

 

• 《毛主席死啦！》by 唐丹鸿
• 《活着》by 余华
• 《色，戒》by 张爱玲
• 《许三观卖血记》by 余华
• 《莎菲女士的日记》by 丁玲

 

《毛主席死啦！》is an autobiographical essay by 唐丹鸿. @Luxi recommended it in this thread a few pages back. In this essay, 唐丹鸿 shares some memories of childhood life from the Cultural Revolution and the period following the death of Mao Zedong. 唐丹鸿 recalls, for example, writing a counterrevolutionary slogan in chalk out of curiosity. She recalls that her aunt was shunned by her family for being a Rightist, and describes a situation where she burst into laughter at her school’s Mao memorial. 唐丹鸿 also violates the Mao taboo linguistically, referring to Mao alongside various animals (毛毛虫, 毛猪). As you can guess from these examples, 唐丹鸿’s essay is irreverent in tone and transgressive in spirit. Language-wise, the essay is easy to follow, though intermediate Chinese learners may find some words difficult to understand.

 
余华’s 《活着》is the novel Chinese language learners around here are most recommended to read. It is the story of a profligate-gambler-turned-peasant-farmer named 福贵 and the tragedies that befall his family over half a century of living in modern China. 《活着》 is an accessible novel. 余华 writes in a straightforward and unembellished style that upper-intermediate language learners will find easy to understand. The novel is a realist portrait of mid-20th-century Chinese village life. The portrait is anecdotally accurate; as one Beijinger remarked to me, the story is “非常中国”.《活着》 is also a conservative, pro-family novel; (toward the end of the book) a quasi-absurdist tragedy; and a Sisyphean meditation on life and death.
 
张爱玲’s《色，戒》is a novella set in Japanese-occupied Shanghai. The novella describes the relationship between the young female student 王佳芝 and 易先生, a collaborationist official who 佳芝 is tasked with seducing and setting up her team to assassinate. Despite being ostensibly a love story, 张爱玲’s novella is not about love and arguably does not even contain a portrayal of it. 张爱玲 tells 佳芝’s story in an odd way. For most of the novella, 佳芝 just sits around, reflecting on her situation and waiting for others to take actions that will change her life. The language in 《色，戒》is advanced. A big part of the difficulty lies in 张爱玲’s vivid descriptions of places and things, like an old booth in a coffee shop and a Shanghai street scene at night. 
 
余华’s《许三观卖血记》is a novel about a hapless cuckold named 许三观 and his misadventures in a 江南 town. Like 《活着》, the plot of this novel tracks the life of a single family in mid-20th-century China over multiple decades. Unlike the tragic 《活着》, 《许三观卖血记》is a comedy. Large sections of the book could be written for the stage; I read 余华’s twenty-nine chapters as scenes that could be easily translated into a three-act play. The first two “acts” are funny and (not infrequently) mean-spirited. They are also the most effective parts of the novel. 余华 has a uncommon gift for creating engaging portraits of selfish people through pared-down descriptions and short, clipped dialogue. As @imron has pointed out, the writing style of 《许三观卖血记》is accessible, even more so than《活着》.
 
丁玲's 《莎菲女士的日记》is a collection of fictional journal entries written by a twenty-year-old woman with tuberculosis in 1920’s Beijing. The titular 莎菲 is a complex and frequently unsympathetic protagonist. In her early journal entries, she comes across as angsty, selfish and impetuous. In later journal entries, darker and more contrarian aspects of 莎菲’s personality emerge. 莎菲 is a woman straining against the expectations of traditional Chinese society. She is not interested in pursuing money and status. She sees no value in chastity and longs for a physical encounter with a strong man. She humiliates the kind and solicitous 苇弟 while obsessing over the tall and married 凌吉士. Apart from her tuberculosis, 莎菲 is mentally unwell. She is self-critical, socially inhibited, and eventually suicidal. Written in the 1920s (the so-called interwar period), 《莎菲女士的日记》raises what we would identify as a host of modern Western literary themes: disaffection with traditional morality, feminism, materialism, mental illness, sexual identity, social alienation, and despair amid a ridiculous age.
 
Perhaps pessimism and preoccupation with death are features of 20th-century Modern art generally, and not specifically Western phenomena.

 

I am currently reading 《猫城记》by 老舍.

[Lu]

Last week, I read, in English translation:

- Xiang Zuotie, ' A Rare Steed for the Martial Emperor' and 'Raising Whales'. Both strange stories told in a strange way: 'A Fine Steed...' the fragmentary and hallucinatory tale of a soldier who goes to Farghana to find said steed and returns; 'Raising Whales' is the absurdist tale of a village that starts to raise whales, but they grow bigger and bigger. Strange tales, I liked the writing.

- Li Juan, 'The Winter of 2009' and 'The Road to Weeping Spring', literary stories from the harsh life in the West of China.

- Li Er, 'Stephen's Back'. Stephen is a football (soccer) talent scout, returning after making one local village boy famous some years ago. His return of course ignites all kinds of simmering fights and resentment and jealousy and whatnot. The story is alright, but the translator saw it fit to translate all the names, so that we are reading about Zhang Six-Steady and Iron-Lock Li and Bean-Bean Liu and so forth and it's really distracting in how silly it looks. At some point the story discusses how some kids change their names at some point, perhaps that was the reason the translator made this choice, but really, no. Do not do this. Bad idea. You can solve the name changes in some other way.

 

Now reading Qiong Yao in a Dutch translation from English (not nearly as bad as the Xinran translation, but still not a good idea). I'm enjoying it.

 

And I finished the first volume of my five-volume Romance of the Three Kingdoms. At this rate I'll finish the whole thing in under three years, which is not bad.

[Lu]

I just finished Qiong Yao's Fire and Rain 烟雨蒙蒙 (in not-too-great Dutch translation from the English) and will discuss it, but with lots of spoilers. Be warned. SPOILERS.

 

I was curious about Qiong Yao and at the same time I had never bothered with her work, because from what I knew she wrote glorified romance novels, and I'm not very interested in romance novels. But this book is More. It is Drama. Rape, abortion, murder, attempted murder, suicide... There is a love affair, but the emotion that drives the plot the most is hate rather than love (though in the end it turns out everything was about love after all, but by then the story is already pretty much done).

 

Story takes place in the 1960s. Lu Yi-ping's father, a warlord, came to Taiwan with the KMT, brining his two wives: Yi-ping's mother and his favourite Hsueh-chin.* He proceeds to kick out Yi-ping and her mother, who continue to live in poverty while her father, Hsueh-chin and their children live in comfortable luxury. After her father whips Yi-ping with a rope, she swears venguance. She proceeds to first steal a boyfriend from half-sister Ru-ping (and then actually falls in love with him); not helping half-sister Meng-ping when she is about to be gang-raped, resulting in a pregnancy and a botched self-administered abortion; exposing Hsueh-chin's affair. Father locks up Hsueh-chin and bastard son in his house, intending to have them starve to death. They escape, taking all his money with them. Father then calls the police (I was surprised to find out at this point, after rape and inprisonment, that the police does in fact exist in this book). Yi-ping tells the police how Hsueh-chin is involved in a smuggling ring. Father has a heart attack. The smuggling ring is arrested. Father dies. With all this revenge going on, Yi-ping loses the stolen boyfriend, who can't handle her strong emotions of hatred. Yi-ping eventually realises that she and her mother actually loved her father all along. There is a lot more going on in the meantime, but this is the gist of it.

 

This is not a romance novel. This is a classic tragedy. Young woman destroyed by revenge that she could not help take, or by her own strong emotions, whatever. Set against an interesting historical background (although it wasn't historical when the novel was written, but meh). If it were written today it might qualify as YA literature, what with a nice young girl who is destroyed by the powers around her and finds her inner evil and as a result loses the nice, pleasant, normal life she had hoped for. The book ends on a note of faint hope, but by then everything is destroyed.

 

So anyway, if you didn't read Qiong Yao (Chiung Yao) because it was just romance novels: you can safely read this book. And probably the rest of them as well.

 

* This made me wonder something I had never thought of before. Father is married to two wives and never divorces either. He was probably not the only one at that time. I wonder how the ROC government handled this. I am confident that having multiple wives is no longer allowed in Taiwan (otherwise many would do it), so it was phased out at some point I suppose? Or the people who already had multiple wives were grandfathered-in? Will have to ask someone if I ever meet someone who might know.

[murrayjames]

Today I finished the 1932 novel《猫城记》by 老舍. It is a science fiction satire about a civilization of Martian cat people and the destruction of that civilization.

 

The satire in《猫城记》is brutal and surprisingly direct. Most 猫人 are addicted to an opium-like drug（迷叶）introduced to their culture by foreigners. 猫城 has a lazy and superstitious populace, a venal emperor, vicious warlords, and useless political parties that sell off their cultural treasures and territories to foreign countries in exchange for 迷叶, money, and prostitutes. There is also a party of young violent communitarian zealots that advocate for revolution but lack basic knowledge of economic affairs.

 

《猫城记》is not lighthearted satire. It is an aggressive critique of a backward and broken civilization, and a warning to that civilization to change or be destroyed. The book ends on an apocalyptic note with the invasion and mass extermination of 猫城 by a race of genocidal foreigners called 矮人.

 

《猫城记》was written in the early 1930s and the language reflects that. So expect 设若 instead of 如果, that sort of thing. However, the vocabulary is not too advanced. I found the book an accessible read.

[murrayjames]

On ‎10‎/‎26‎/‎2013 at 12:19 PM, Lu said:

[余华:] I think in the realm of literature, sex isn’t important. [...] Excellent writers should be neutral — and be able to write men and women. And when you’re writing, you’re not writing as a man or a woman.

 

On ‎10‎/‎26‎/‎2013 at 12:19 PM, Lu said:

'Excellent writers should be neutral'. [Lu:] I wonder if he himself meets that criterium.

 

Lu,

 

Reading back through this thread, I had a thought about 余华 and his comments about gendered fiction (quoted by you on Page 44).

 

In《活着》all the main characters suffer. The two female characters—家珍 and 凤霞—suffer in poised silence, while the male characters—福贵, 有庆—fight and push back against their situation in various ways. 家珍 is the loyal abused wife who does not complain or return evil for evil. 凤霞 is the deaf-mute daughter who is literally unable to speak. Before 福贵 turns into the existential suffering Everyman, he argues and he fights, rashly and often mistakenly. 有庆 protests the unfairness all around him (e.g., the selling of 凤霞 into servitude, the loss of his lamb). Even poor 苦根 vocalizes his discontent on numerous occasions. But the women in《活着》bear suffering mostly in silence. We see this even with ancillary characters. At the hospital, we hear from 春生, but not from his wife, for whom 有庆 was sacrificed to save. Later on, 春生 himself is sacrificed by his wife. We hear 春生’s lament firsthand, but hear about 春生’s wife’s motivations only secondhand.

 

So I disagree with 余华. His novels are clearly gendered, notwithstanding his claims to the contrary. (In 《许三观卖血记》, this is even more obvious.)

 

That being said, there is another layer that is worth uncovering. 余华 may be naïve in his approach to or understanding of gender (or sexist, say), but he is not a bad writer, nor are his female characters boring or poorly written. On the contrary, they are interesting and alive. 凤霞 is easily the best character in 《活着》 (ditto for 许玉兰 in 《许三观卖血记》). There is no novel without her. 凤霞’s marriage to 二喜 is the emotional heart of the novel, and her fate is its tragic and literary center (see below, spoilers). Another example: It is 家珍, not 福贵, who shows moral courage when a pitiful and persecuted 春生 shows up at their door.

 

Spoiler

Family death list in 《活着》. 凤霞 is at the center：

 

徐老爷 - 徐娘  - 有庆 - 凤霞 - 家珍 - 二喜 - 苦根

 

In 余华’s novels, the dopey male protagonists get into fights and sell their blood for cash, while the female protagonists bear hardship with gravitas and stash away food to prepare for famine.

 

Interested in your thoughts.

[Lu]

1 hour ago, murrayjames said:

In《活着》all the main characters suffer. The two female characters—家珍 and 凤霞—suffer in poised silence, while the male characters—福贵, 有庆—fight and push back against their situation in various ways. (...)

It's been over ten years since I read 活着 and I don't remember many details, so thank you for this analysis. I really liked 活着, it is not sexist on the surface (as I recall, none of the female characters is raped, abused, perved on or objectified, which is not a given in contemporary Chinese literature), but this shows how it is still sexist in a more subtle way.

[Lu]

Just finished 下面，我该干些什么 by 阿乙. Most of the book is the rather factual story of a young man who plans to murder his classmate, murders her, goes on the run, is caught and then judged and sentenced. Told fairly dryly: we read what the young man does and his more superficial thoughts, but little of his underlying feelings. Still with literary style. The young man's motives remain unclear until the very end and that kept me curious: it seemed a case of a man driven to un-conscienceness by his dead-end life in which nobody cares about him, but at the same time it was made clear that that was not his reason. The real reason reminded me strongly of another 阿乙 story, 先知. Very philosophical idea about the meaning of life, about what we are actually doing with our lives and why.

 

This was a worthwhile read, but I still think 阿乙's short stories are stronger.

[murrayjames]

I recently read a number of Christian creeds and confessions in Chinese: the Apostles Creed (使徒信经), the Nicene Creed (尼西亚信经), the Chalcedonian Creed (迦克墩信经), the Athanasian Creed (亚他那修信经), the Belgic Confession (比利时信条), the Canons of Dort (多特信经) and the Heidelberg Confession (海德堡要理问答). 

 

The creeds date to the first few centuries of the Christian church (approx. 100-500). The confessions date to the period of the Protestant Reformation (1500-1650). Some users here will be familiar with these texts, but for anyone who is not: the creeds and confessions are statements of Christian belief and doctrine produced by religious bodies and leaders, often in response to theological controversy. They are read and recited in many churches to this day.

 

The Chinese translations I read were easy to understand. The texts are not long—about 40000 characters altogether.

 

Next up is the novel《在细雨中呼喊》by 余华.

[Luxi]

After my disappointment with translated literature (by a certain translator who shall remain nameless), I've been back to reading Chinese texts in the original. I recently bought a collection of short stories by  Yan Lianke and just finished reading the first story in that book: 小安的新闻, which I am now reading again and will probably read a third time. This is by far the most beautiful piece of prose that I have read this year.

 

The story is only 15-16 pages long and was published probably round 2010, I don't think it's been translated into English. I can't tell much about the story without spoilers, but here is how it starts: Little An's grandpa, the last living member of Little An's family, dies suddenly, leaving 15 year-old Little An alone and in charge of house, small field, chores, and Grandpa's savings. So he goes out to the local town and buys a TV set. 

 

The story is typical Yan Lianke, with layer upon layer of meanings, parody and observations, small bits of magic trying to impinge or not into the real world, and much subtle poetry. Also colours. One could talk about it a long time. Not much politics in it (a couple of very funny jives, though), but social comment instead and much more global than many of Yan's long novels. Far from being banned, this story seems to be in the reading curriculum for secondary schools in China. Deservedly so.

 

Is it difficult to read? Yes, I found it quite hard to read, but not because of the characters Yan uses. Strangely, most of the characters are common ones that I already knew. (close to 90% according to CTA). It's generally not literary, most of it is very colloquial. It's not because of 方言either, at least not entirely. But Yan does something to the language, someone please correct me if I'm wrong, I think he may be experimenting with it, the grammar he uses (or abuses?) got me lost and had me reading back quite a few times - but I found it worth the effort. 

 

 

 

 

[murrayjames]

@Luxi

 

What books would you recommend of Yan Lianke’s, to someone who has not read him before?

[永鈞]

This is very interesting! I was just looking at his books earlier today. It’s fascinating to me that in Taiwan his books are marketed by describing him as the mainland writer with the most banned books ?

 

 

[Luxi]

2 hours ago, murrayjames said:

What books would you recommend of Yan Lianke’s, to someone who has not read him before?

 

Of the few I've read, I would say either 受活 ("Lenin's Kisses", superbly translated by Carlos Rojas) or 丁庄梦 ("The Dream of Ding Village" tr. Cindy Carter) but I have only  read  a handful of his novels,  all but one (为人名服务) in English translation because my Chinese isn't quite up to the mark. He uses both Henan and literary Chinese. I think Dream of Ding Village is the most approachable but it is very, very sad - and it is still banned in China. 受活 is what I would think most typical of Yan Lianke, it's also sad but not all the time, and is only banned on-and-off. Looks like it's OK at the moment. 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Lenins-Kisses-Yan-Lianke-ebook/dp/B009P6AL5Y/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8

https://book.douban.com/subject/10484056/

 

Yan Lianke is quite prolific and many of his novels are easy to find in PRC as paper books or ebooks, also his collections of essays and short stories. 

https://book.douban.com/subject_search?search_text=阎连科&cat=1001&start=15

http://e.dangdang.com/newsearchresult_page.html?keyword=阎连科

The volume of short stories that I have seems good. It spans from the 1980s to 2010, annoyingly in reverse chronological order - so the most mature Yan Lianke is at the front, I'd read it starting from the back - I fear that after "Little An's News", everything else may seem disappointing.

http://e.dangdang.com/products/1900693443.html

 

About Dream of Ding Village, a search for丁庄梦 in Douban results in a blank page with this message :

Quote

搜索 丁庄梦
相关法律法规和，搜索未予显示。请尝试其他查询词。

 

Here's why:

Being Alive Is Not Just An Instinct.  By Zhang Ying (张英).  March 23, 2006.
(originally published in Southern Weekend) 
http://zonaeuropa.com/culture/c20060327_1.htm

 

 

 

[Geiko]

This month I’ve been reading 你走慢了我的时间, a book written by 张西. For a while, this book kept appearing in my Instagram feed, everybody seemed to be reading it, and when I saw that a French guy who’s living in Taipei read it too, I thought it couldn’t be too difficult, so I bought it online. I didn’t know anything about the plot, it was a complete surprise.

I started reading it and found out it’s not fiction: this book is about the two-week trip that the author made around the island of Taiwan. This circular trip (环岛) seems to be quite popular, I remember the film Island Etude (练习曲) also talked about a deaf guy who travels around the island by bicycle. The book itself is interesting, because along the journey Zhang Xi meets different people every day, and they invite her to sleep in their home. Each chapter is dedicated to each one of these unknown people who welcome her in their daily lives, she tells us the stories of these “unimportant people”, their struggles, their hardships, their memories, either good or bad. The language used is simple, so it’s an easy read for intermediate learners, and since chapters are short, the book can be read very fast. The only problem I see is that the structure is a bit repetitive, it’s always like this: Zhang goes to a new place, host XYZ goes to the train station to meet her, they tell Zhang about their past, she reflects about it, and the next day she moves to the next place and everything starts all over again.

I wouldn’t dissuade anyone from reading it, but I also think that unless you have a special interest in the subject, you can skip this book without regrets.