Writer and translator.
Joined November 2014
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There's something comic about the photographs of young people posing with a cardboard cutout of Zhou Enlai. The book in which they are reproduced does attempt to figure out what happened in previous years on the square; it ends on this more festive memorial in January of 1979.
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(From Renmin de daonian, published 1979. I looked it up because it's mentioned in a history of Chinese art photography. The official publication was built in part from a landmark unofficial album of 1977, edited by Wang Zhiping. Amateur photographers, striking photographs.)
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The fixation of Yinsheng in Qinqiang and Ansheng in Qingwa—both, to some extent, probably intended to be read as Jia Pingwa in childhood—on trees and the descriptions of their magical properties is helpful to understanding his many paintings of the same subject.
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I'm interested in the trees. But, more generally, after seeing the paintings has changed how the rural novels play in my head—in a way more transformative than going to their settings myself.
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(These paintings are reproduced in Pingwa wenmo, published by Xinshijiechubanshe in 2011.)
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There is a luxury supermarket and a pork cutlet shop on this floor of the mall. This part of Roppongi is clean, the curators at dinner would say. A block down, at dusk, the streets are full of fantastically thin women, tottering from taxi to elevator. Clean as a scrubbed potato.
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The Shinjuku Line, instead of picking up passengers, seemed to be emptying out. We came into daylight, crossed a river. I wondered if I had missed my stop, ended up on the west side of the city. But I was in Motoyawata in Chiba, far to the east. I don't ride the line often.
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April 22, 2026. There must be some way you could walk from Shibuya to Iwamotocho underground or in elevated passages (not tunnels, but lit corridors, accessible to pedestrians, with ATMs and Korean restaurants along the way). At least, you can get lost in them in Kamiyacho.
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April 21, 2026. A long walk from Ikebukuro to Shin-Okubo. The architecture of 1978. Lanes lined with yards with walls give way to alleys that run between fake universities. Internet bars, smoking allowed. The Nepalese shops sell Russian Snickers bars and Bounty at the register.
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April 17, 2026. After waking up at a sensible time, I was unwilling to stay in bed. I took the earliest train to Kita-senju, to wander around for a while on the edge of Adachi Ward.
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April 17, 2026. At least, the effort of walking in the early morning sun was good. It was good to soak it up. It's a good season—the rain is done, and it's still cool in the morning, and there are flowers in the alleys.
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April 17, 2026. I could have ended the morning with the morning set at one of the cafes in the arcades near the station, instead of stopping for Minute Maid Zero Sugar Peach Lemonade and a sachet of sliced salami to enjoy as I thought of things to write in these spaces.
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I read the Michel Houellebecq poems that Joe Amato translated. They reminded me of Shen Haobo, who is still perhaps most famous for publishing a collection that contained this poem about harassing women on the bus. You will have to make do with my flawed translation.
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Although the state literary bureaucracy is not without its problems, it does guarantee especially middle-aged writers some degree of stability. For better or worse, state protection will guarantee that China is the last nation producing unmarketable literary fiction at scale.
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Yan Lianke, otherwise gloomy: "The greatest advantage of the Chinese Writers' Association is that it ensures that many talented authors won't have to worry about basic living requirements and ... instead can devote themselves to their writing." theparisreview.org/blog/2024…
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April 8th, 2026. Maybe I will start cataloguing ward government mail-out materials promoting the ongoing fight against organized crime. This fibrous tablet will expand into a rag when soaked in water.
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April 6, 2026. In this unnamed rainy season, the Hibiya Line smells of wet socks, a room closed up all winter and suddenly heated. It's almost overpowering. Until the women board at Ginza, with hot, floral perfume. A man sits beside me with a styrofoam crate of warm, spicy meat.
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