
Folding Beijing – 2016 Hugo Best Novelette - z3t1
http://uncannymagazine.com/article/folding-beijing-2/
======
rabboRubble
Here's the Chinese if anybody is interested in attempting to read in the
original language.

[https://read.douban.com/reader/ebook/20769128/](https://read.douban.com/reader/ebook/20769128/)

~~~
kkylin
Thanks! Anyone out there know if there is a way to read this in traditional
(as opposed to simplified) Chinese?

~~~
ttflee
Try this link:

[http://translate.google.com.hk/translate?hl=en&sl=zh-
CN&tl=z...](http://translate.google.com.hk/translate?hl=en&sl=zh-CN&tl=zh-
TW&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.newsmth.net%2Fbbs0an.php%3Fpath%3D%2Fgroups%2Fliteral.faq%2FSF%2Fyuanchuang%2Fwangyou%2Fown%2Ffangfang727)

~~~
rabboRubble
Be careful with machine translated Simp to Trad. Traditional to Simplified
character mapping is 1 to many.

When plugging Simplified into Google Translate, the translation therefore is a
many to one and Google frequently doesn't get it right. I'm not sure how
Google determines the mapping, perhaps by absolute greatest frequency? Here's
an example of what I mean with a commonly used character:

(Simplified) 复 maps to (Traditional) 複, 復, and 覆

------
a_wang
it's not fiction, but reality

~~~
justicezyx
A universal rendering of the eternal struggle of human race.

------
fatman13gg
\--Spoiler alert---

After reading the first chapter and beginning of the second chapter, to me, it
seems not a good piece at all. They had the technology of building a folding
city for god sake, yet the protagonist is doing some heavy labor dealing with
the city's trash. You would imagine such work would long have been automated.
Actually, this always has been a problem when I read sci-fi story, some
setting are just fabricated to make the plot more emotional but never really
fit the common sense of, at least to me, the development of technology.

I certainly hope this whole Chinese writer winning an award wasn't some
political move to attract attention.

~~~
ZeroGravitas
Oh the irony, you really should have finished reading before commenting, as
this is very explicitly addressed in the story. It could be argued that this
is exactly what makes it realistic or at least provides verisimilitude.

~~~
fatman13gg
Okay. I just finished reading the whole thing. Still a lot of the things don't
add up. A lot of the things don't feel right. I can't put it into exact word.
But in the link provided by rabboRubble
([https://read.douban.com/reader/ebook/20769128/](https://read.douban.com/reader/ebook/20769128/)),
it seems that most reasonable Chinese sci-fi readers think the story is lame
if you read the top review. And that's about how I feel.

\--Spoiler Alert--

The whole story actually doesn't seem to have anything to do with sci-fi at
all. The plot is evolving around a man delivering letter? What? Is it in
Victorian or is it in the future? All sci-fi elements are just stuffed in
there and has no actual meat. I think for a good sci-fi, the author should
first think through what technology exists in that world and then develop
story that is confined to the setting. Not like this story which sci-fi only
served as some convenient facts for author to exploit reader's emotion.

Edit.

And wow... thanks for all the down votes, guys. Hope all you've down voted
read the whole folding BJ already.

~~~
rossitter
> thanks for all the down votes, guys

This may be why:

First you described a defect in the story. But you claim such defects have
"always been a problem" in science fiction. So this story is unsatisfying to
you in company with a slew of other works, many of which will have been award
winners.

Then you speculated that this particular story might have won an award only
because it was Chinese, as if the other finalists are likely to have been
better. Yet you've made it clear that you wouldn't expect them to be. So your
initial criticism, that the story falls short as so much of science fiction
does, gives way to a criticism of this peculiar story--but you have only
singled it out for being written by a Chinese author. So, it is ordinarily
bad, yes; but it is particularly bad for being Chinese.

I do not think you meant it like that, but that is certainly how you wrote it.

As for the premise of this and similar stories: It is commonly held that
technological advancement disproportionately benefits the ruling classes,
while the workers are made to grind away as usual, life having been little
altered. This line of thought may vary in intensity and nuance with place and
regime. "Folding Beijing" and many stories like it draw up a simplified world
--all fictive worlds are simplified--in which this tenet rings particularly
true. Probably the author intends to play with a view on our world as it is,
or that part of it which she is most concerned with. Certainly she wants to
lay hold of a reader's emotion, to keep them reading (we do not all share your
desires in speculative fiction): who does not care about what their own lot
may become, or the lots of their neighbors? We may even feel this way when our
lots are presented figuratively, as in a world that looks a little too close
to our own for being so different--or a little too different for being so
clearly our own. Many of us are weak for this sort of thing. But I think it's
disingenuous to claim that such a story _only_ does this. It may not serve the
function you want it to; but then, if you're used to that in science fiction,
you should be expecting it any time you see the label.

(If you want to know, I personally thought this one dull, but I feel that way
about a lot of science fiction, too.)

~~~
fatman13gg
> But you claim such defects have "always been a problem" in science fiction.

I wasn't referring to sci-fi in general. I was talking about my personal
experience. I specifically had "when I read sci-fi story" in the original
comment.

> So, it is ordinarily bad, yes; but it is particularly bad for being Chinese.

Yes, all politics behind this particular piece winning the award is my
speculation, but I wasn't saying that "it is particularly bad for being
Chinese". It would be hard for someone who doesn't familiar with Chinese
netizen culture to comprehend such speculation. Go through comment section of
the link provided by rabboRubble
([https://read.douban.com/reader/ebook/20769128/](https://read.douban.com/reader/ebook/20769128/)).
Like PR measures described in "Century of the self", <Folding BJ> is covered a
lot in the news and planting fabricated idea among certain groups. Most
reasonable Chinese sci-fi readers come to the same speculation as me (top
review/most voted) while other lesser minds fail to see it, thus the chaos in
comment section mentioned in the above link.

