
Modern China Is So Crazy It Needs a New Literary Genre (2016) - ALee
https://lithub.com/modern-china-is-so-crazy-it-needs-a-new-literary-genre/
======
qlk1123
> First, the history is different. Chinese civilization has an unbroken
> history of five thousand years.

Despite that this is a inspired article, this sentence still interrupt my
immersive reading. Such claim has always been ridiculous to me, but it is
still too often spoken to be ignore. Chinese has unique own point of view to
their history, which includes legends and myths. Check this (
[http://camphorpress.com/5000-years-of-
history/](http://camphorpress.com/5000-years-of-history/) ) if you have
interests.

~~~
dTal
I mean, strictly speaking everywhere has exactly as much history as everywhere
else.

As for China, there was a concerted and largely successful effort to destroy
its cultural heritage during the "Cultural Revolution", by the party that
remains in power today. Hardly unbroken.

~~~
headsupftw
Are you saying the Cultural Revolution has largely destroyed China's cultural
heritage? If so I'll have to disagree with you.

~~~
qlk1123
China did lose many.

Let's take religion as an example. In Malaysia, Taiwan, and Singapore,
traditional temples are still "alive" with popular and active ceremonies,
while most temples in China I went are just dead buildings: people lived there
and do things have nothing to do with divine, CCP-permitted official events,
foreign tourists, modern decorations that have no integrity, etc.

It's just sad to see those religious sites dying. The spiritual essence died,
during exactly the Cultural Revolution.

~~~
pm90
Why is that a bad thing? Religion has been the cause of much strife. Sure, you
miss the nice parts when it’s gone. But I take one look at other societies
that still fight over this arbitrary “faiths” which make no scientific sense
and it makes me wonder if it isn’t a simpler world to not believe in the
superstition of religion ( or at least treat it that way legally)

~~~
seer
Its interesting that Buddist religions don’t appear to encourage strife per
se, my knowledge of asian religions is very spotty, but I don’t think they
have the same wars and justification for violence as the western religions do.

~~~
saiya-jin
Look at Sri Lanka, very bloody civil war between Buddhist majority and
Hinduist minority. Atrocities done on both sides, ie at the end when rebels
were losing and surrounded, state army was shelling civilians left and right.
Another example - history of Ladakh province in northern India - conquered by
buddhist armies some +-1000 years ago. Buddhist army, interesting term.

I also had this view that buddhism is a faith that promotes peace - which
might be true, but you still have the same human beings behind it. History
proves my naive idea wrong.

------
stevenwoo
There's a short mention about food safety and how ordinary citizens worry
about this - I'm in the USA and I and the people I know always inspect the
food we eat for country of origin and never purchase anything from mainland
China. On the one hand factory farming in the USA means we have to worry about
stuff like e coli and safe food handling but that pales in comparison to the
risk of feeding your children lead or melamine because the producer was
purposely trying to pinch pennies.

~~~
ramraj07
What kinds of food have you found to have been made in China?

~~~
joeblubaugh
Many products in Asian supermarkets are made in China - we try to buy from
brands that manufacture in other Asian countries if possible, or the USA.

Some examples: \- spices and condiments for chinese cooking, \- seeds, nuts,
and canned vegetables that are not common here \- asian meat preparations like
fish ball, vietnamese beef ball

~~~
throwaway5032
I did that until I discovered the Lao Gan Ma (Old Godmother) brand of chili
sauce.

It’s just too good to care.

~~~
selimthegrim
Is this the stuff with the little garlic bulbs in it? What’s a fair price to
pay?

~~~
throwaway5032
They have a couple different flavors. My favorite is the one with peanuts in
it. I don’t recall seeing garlic bulbs.

It looks like this:

[http://nymag.com/strategist/article/lao-gan-ma-best-chili-
sa...](http://nymag.com/strategist/article/lao-gan-ma-best-chili-sauce-
review.html)

At Asian supermarkets, they should be less than $5. I usually see them them at
Ranch 99 (a Chinese chain supermarket) for 3.99.

But the price can vary if you go to a predominantly Korean or Vietnamese
supermarket.

------
cmuguythrow
Is it just me or do all of these things seem very reasonable, even tame by
novel standards? All of the examples are exciting stories, but nothing that
doesn't show up in your standard action movie.

~~~
doombolt
The difference is that you don't _just_ know that it has actually happened,
but also you are footing the bill for it.

As a Russian I find chinese ultra-unrealism pretty wimpy. We've got cooler,
more fierce stuff.

~~~
kough
Are there forums / collections of Russian ultra-unrealism? Ideally with
English transaltions -- would love to read some but I don't understand
Russian.

~~~
doombolt
You could probably start from The Moscow Times, though they are rather
softcore.

[https://themoscowtimes.com/articles/krasnodar-judge-
throws-2...](https://themoscowtimes.com/articles/krasnodar-judge-
throws-2-million-dollar-party-58405)

Then nobody was sure that this judge had ever study law. She said she went to
some college in Georgia (the country) which said she's not on their records.

------
zipwitch
Is "cyberpunk dystopia" truly insufficient?

~~~
riskneutral
Maybe if you dial the “punk” down to zero, dial the “dystopia” up to 9, and
maybe “cyber” is around 3 or 4 depending on how futuristic modern day China
is.

~~~
almost_usual
Orwellian dystopia with a hint of cyber

------
ForHackernews
Shades of [https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/21413849-nothing-is-
true...](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/21413849-nothing-is-true-and-
everything-is-possible)

------
epynonymous
for the record, that’s a picture of hong kong, though it is a part of china,
it’s not representative of where most of these “stories” happen

------
vnorilo
This was a great article. Usually I get a distinct "translated from Chinese"
vibe, but not here! I thought that the translation must be very good. Can
Anyone who has read the original comment?

~~~
Apfel
Agreed. The only thing that really jumped out at me as "translated from
chinese" was the "As you all know" (I assumed translated directly from 众所周知)

------
xte
Any rapid growing/evolving country is a crazy and super-dangerous/disastrous
evolution. You can't evolve fast and well, you can't avoid mistake when
changes happen and the more concentrated changes the more mistake you'll
get...

Often after some time evolution start to became for reaction an involution and
if people in that country are lucky evolution+involution result after some
time in a new stability "golden period", but that's rare...

------
biesnecker
Does anyone have a link to the original Chinese?

~~~
yorwba
Possibly
[http://www.bjwl.org.cn/wwwroot/bjzjw/publish/article/657/530...](http://www.bjwl.org.cn/wwwroot/bjzjw/publish/article/657/53058.shtml)

Edit: actually, the English version appears to have been adapted
significantly, providing details that would either require no explanation for
a Chinese audience, or that could get the author into trouble with the
authorities. But the version that the translation was actually based on might
not be public.

------
erikb
Interestingly, while reading the text and with zero knowledge of the novel
he's talking about, I always assume the text's author to be a woman. Does
anybody know the guy? Are his novels also like this?

------
nshm
China does need a modern religion for expansion of the influence sphere, not
just literature, that's why the officials are in touch with Vatican.

------
8bitsrule
This article on China's recent crazyiness doesn't mention its long-standing
oppression of minorities. It looks as though getting at the obvious root of
the obvious problem is not on the table.

That said, there's plenty of madness at loose in the world. When we in the US
get our own house cleaned up, finger-pointing will see less absurd.

~~~
yourbandsucks
.. could we have just one humanist piece about life in China without people
breaking out the battle axes? We don't shoehorn the Iraq war into everything
about America.

We could do with a lot more understanding and a lot less context-free outrage
if we're gonna get through this century with the peace intact.

~~~
CptFribble
Actions that cost lives should always be front and center.

Maybe we _should_ be talking more about the Iraq war in the USA, considering
our actions led to the death of hundreds of thousands of people.

I contend the opposite: The only way to survive the next century is if we
identify sources of death and misery, and (try) to hold leaders accountable to
stamp them out.

~~~
yourbandsucks
The Chinese government has overwhelmingly reduced death and misery within
their borders. Half a billion people moved from third world to first world.
Half. A. Billion.

And their big foreign policy power play consists of building infrastructure
for other third world countries. Turns out you can do that for 10 countries
cheaper than invading one.

Yet the popular opinion ever since dragonfly was proposed is that they're the
worst country ever. How about some perspective?

~~~
taneq
The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, eh?

~~~
yourbandsucks
More like: Life is complicated and not black and white.

The Chinese actions in Xinjiang are an overreaction, and wrong, but:

1) Every western country has an equivalently bad record regarding reaction to
terror attacks and/or separatist movements.

2) Nobody in the tech community cared until the dragonfly thing came up and
they all went on wikipedia looking for reasons to hate China.

The way people talk about China these days reminds me of McCarthyism more than
humanism. I have to wonder, if China were less successful, and the people were
poorer, would they be less upset? They're fine with buying cheap goods, after
all..

~~~
PavlovsCat
> Life is complicated and not black and white.

vs. stuff like

> yet the popular opinion ever since dragonfly was proposed is that they're
> the worst country ever.

and

> Nobody in the tech community cared until the dragonfly thing came up and
> they all went on wikipedia looking for reasons to hate China.

Nobody cared? Went on Wikipedia looking for reasons to hate China? Is anyone
allowed to guess about the causes of such sophistry, or does that just go one
way?

~~~
yourbandsucks
Check the record. We didn't have 3 hate pieces a day on China hitting the
front page of HN until dragonfly.

Maybe you want to take a crack at why?

~~~
Latteland
It's not hate pieces to talk about building military bases out of nothing in
international waters, claiming they are now your territory, kidnapping the
head of Interpol, kidnapping people in Hong Kong and other countries who write
and complain about China. It's the truth.

~~~
yourbandsucks
Ok, you're not wrong, but you could make similar-caliber complaints about any
of the rest of the UN security council. Or Israel. There's a whole cottage
industry writing about them.

How come China specifically rockets to the top of HN whenever someone finds
some negative press? And why did it start after dragonfly was proposed?

~~~
Latteland
I do point out issues with other countries, like Isreali settlements, us
supporting Saudi Arabian war in yemen. China is a lot more powerful than most
other countries (like the us) and needs to stop acting like a bully, as the us
needs to be careful to do too.

------
mastazi
> 3) It is has the quality of a fable or an allegory. Reality itself has the
> quality of a fable.

In recent years I have been seeing this over and over, not just in China but
also in the West. Two examples are the rise of Trump and Brexit.

~~~
narrator
Well we forget history. Can you imagine how bizarre the Russian revolution or
World War I would have felt to someone living through it?

------
twic
This sounds a lot like Pelevin's turbo-realism to me. It's probably not a
coincidence that that movement arose in early post-communist Russia, when the
present were similarly unmoored from the past.

------
osipovas
This should have a 2016 tag :)

~~~
forkLding
The article this was translated from was written in 2015

~~~
Animats
That's important, because China hadn't rolled out the "social credit" system
back then.

China has a new approach to control. It's not Orwellian. It's not the USSR's.
It's not a police state. It's a new thing. It's the gamification of
authoritarianism.

The previous system of control was run through the "work unit", when almost
everybody worked for the state. The party mostly acted through work
supervisors, rather than cops. That started to come apart once there were more
private employers. The social credit system is an attempt to get back that
level of control. It's going to be interesting to see how this works out.

~~~
ilamont
> It's the gamification of authoritarianism. ... It's going to be interesting
> to see how this works out.

And like all gamification systems, it's already being gamed.

The citizens and enforcers who figure out the tricks win, everyone else
suffers, and resentment builds.

~~~
kkarakk
good,china needs a regime change.their status quo has been propped up
artificially for too long

~~~
Animats
By what? China's 5-10% annual growth in standard of living makes up for a lot.

