The Reincarnated Giant: Twenty-First-Century Chinese Science Fiction Read online

  TRANSLATING CHINESE SCIENCE FICTION

  In 1970 William A. Lyell translated into English Lao She’s Cat Country (1932), a dystopian novel about China’s prevailing corruption and total lack of individual integrity. It was the first Chinese novel of the genre made available to English-language readers. The Martian Cat Country’s uncanny resemblance to China in 1932 and its complete hopelessness can be read as an antidote to the didactic “realism” and patriotic propaganda on the eve of the Japanese invasion. A new edition of this translation was recently published by Penguin (2013). The first English-language anthology of Chinese science fiction, Science Fiction from China, edited by Dingbo Wu and Patrick Murphy (Praeger, 1989), focuses on the early reform era (1978–1983), including major stories by authors like Zheng Wenguang, Tong Enzheng, Wei Yahua, and Ye Yonglie.

  More recently, three important science fiction novels by Hong Kong and Taiwan authors reached English-language readers. S. K. Chang’s The City Trilogy (Columbia University Press, 2003) is an epic that incorporates other genre elements such as martial arts romance and also has a strong political undertone concerning Taiwan’s history and identity. Dung Kai-cheung’s Atlas: The Archaeology of an Imaginary City (Columbia University Press, 2012) is a collection of short Borgesian essays and stories that fabricate the past, the present, and the future of Victoria, a city that may or may not be Hong Kong, or at least a heterotopic mirror of Hong Kong. It should be noted that Dung’s Atlas won the Science Fiction and Fantasy Translation Award in 2013. Chan Koonchung’s The Fat Years (2009) was translated into English by Michael S. Duke and released by Doubleday in 2011. The Fat Years is China’s equivalent of Brave New World (if not a darker 1984), presenting a dystopian image of present-day China, its system, its intellectual culture, and its amnesia of its recent history.

  The single most important change in recent years in the English-language translations of Chinese science fiction has been the unrivaled devotion and efforts of Ken Liu. He has translated not only several full-length novels, including The Three-Body Problem (Tor, 2014) and, third in the trilogy, Death’s End (Tor, 2016), as well as Chen Qiufan’s novel The Waste Tide (Tor, forthcoming), but also dozens of novellas and stories from a variety of authors, including Chen Qiufan, Xia Jia, Ma Boyong, Hao Jingfang, and Tang Fei. His first collection of translated stories, Invisible Planet, was released in 2016 (Tor) to critical acclaim.

  All such efforts are important milestones in making Chinese science fiction’s journey to the West an epic event. The Reincarnated Giant is the latest effort, and it is a collection featuring a comprehensive list of science fiction writers, with their most important works translated into English for the first time. What is also notable is that most of the contributions are from academics and translators whose work is not usually limited to science fiction.

  THE REINCARNATED GIANT: RENDITIONS AND THE CURRENT ANTHOLOGY

  In 2012, upon the invitation of Theodore Huters, I edited a special issue of Renditions (77/78). The issue showcases representative works of Chinese science fiction from its first and latest booms, focusing on the late Qing and the contemporary. Paralleling the science fiction writings from these two beginnings of successive centuries proved to be an intriguing project. Both epochs are characterized by heightened aspirations for change as well as by deep anxieties about China’s future. A comparative reading of the stories from the late Qing and the contemporary sheds light on their common themes. Yet the recapitulations of the earlier age’s literary motifs also lead to self-reflective variations that point to the latter age’s singularity. It is hoped that the fruitful conversations between scholars of the late Qing and observers of contemporary China triggered by the special issue continue with the present volume.

  The 2012 Renditions special issue was the first English-language collection of Chinese science fiction to appear since the publication of Wu and Murphy’s anthology in 1989. The thirteen pieces included in the special issue are divided into two groups. The first four pieces are novel excerpts and short stories from the first decade of Chinese science fiction’s development. The other nine selections are recent short stories by contemporary authors.

  The present volume, a substantially enlarged collection following that special issue, focuses on contemporary science fiction from Taiwan, Hong Kong, and the PRC. Although no late Qing pieces appear in this collection, there is a large number of authors of the twenty-first century: Liu Cixin, Han Song, Wang Jinkang, Zhao Haihong, La La, Chi Hui, Fei Dao, and Xia Jia, as well as two other PRC writers, Chen Qiufan and Bao Shu, and three writers from Hong Kong and Taiwan, Lo Yi-chin, Dung Kai-cheung, and Egoyan Zheng.

  For Chinese fans, Liu Cixin, Han Song, and Wang Jinkang, the three most senior authors (born in 1963, 1965, and 1948, respectively), are called the Big Three. They have shaped the field in significant ways. Liu Cixin, a so-called hard science fiction writer, revived the great tradition of space opera for Chinese readers. Han Song reenergized Lu Xun’s legacy in blurring the boundary between realism and surrealism and between politics and technology. Wang Jinkang, a humanist, has worked to keep alive the utopian impulse for a hopeful future—with the possible exception of the collection’s title story, “The Reincarnated Giant.” This unusual story, with its dark humor, was, it’s worth noting, originally published under a pseudonym.

  In this anthology are two contributions by Liu Cixin, in fact two of his most important stories, “The Village Schoolteacher” (2001) and “The Poetry Cloud” (2003). In both, Liu creates sublime, awe-inspiring imagery of the universe while also presenting an ambiguous negotiation between poetry and technology, morality and survival, humanity and the universe. “The Village Schoolteacher” combines realistic depictions of the struggle of a teacher to help underprivileged children in rural China with a wondrously imaginative telling of an intergalactic war extending over the entire Milky Way. Whereas the former aspect appears to be but a nuanced detail in the unfolding of the latter divine drama, it nonetheless proves crucial in the story for human survival. “The Poetry Cloud” presents a seemingly utopian description of the happy life of two Chinese poets (one of them a hyperdimensional alien disguised as Li Bai) after the total extinction of the solar system, but the poetry cloud, a supercomputer, can best be viewed as a simulacrum, an instance of a virtual reality fabricated by the technologized mimesis of the poetic vision after its creators have been wiped out. Liu Cixin contrasts scientific certainty with the contingency of the human vision, thus turning a utopia of science and technology into an uncertain dystopia for humanity.

  Compared with that of Liu Cixin, Han Song’s style is more provocative both artistically and politically. He is often compared to Kafka, but a more relevant comparison is no doubt with Lu Xun. His sf writings are full of uncanny, gloomy, and sometimes inexplicable images that aim to unconceal reality’s dark underbelly. Han Song’s images also resonate with some of Lu Xun’s famous devices, such as the “iron house” metaphor and cannibalism, which are reappropriated to address the problems of contemporary China. “The Passengers and the Creator” (2006) depicts a group of Chinese people stuck in a new type of iron house: the main cabin of an airplane where they are fed the flesh of those who have died on the plane. The passengers have to go through the process of being enlightened to see the truth of their reality before making a revolution that ends in a plane crash, which forms an ambiguous national allegory. In “Regenerated Bricks” (2011), Han Song depicts how artists and developers create humanized intelligent bricks by recycling the earthquake remains in which are embedded human flesh. The miracle of the regenerated bricks eventually enables the Chinese to conquer the universe, but what they build with these bricks is forever haunted by the whispers and weeping of the dead.

  Wang Jinkang’s “The Reincarnated Giant” (2006) can be read as an allegory about the greedy Chinese nouveaux riches’ craving for unlimited development, wealth, and power, and even longevity, that ends in irreversible catastrophe. It foregrounds an unsatisfied desire for
zengzhang (growth), a ubiquitous keyword in current news coverage of China’s economic leap, marked by a continuously escalating GDP. The outcome in Wang Jinkang’s story comes as little surprise: the insatiable desire for development leads to uncontrollable results that eventually ruin the developers themselves. The grotesque image of the reincarnated giant epitomizes China’s myth of economic development.

  A number of the other stories in this volume come from younger writers, and they point to new directions for the genre’s future development. La La’s “The Radio Waves That Never Die” (2007) and Zhao Haihong’s “1923: A Fantasy” (2007) both reuse themes of revolutionary literature in postrevolutionary narratives. La La’s story, through a puzzle-solving process, shows how a posthuman descendant decodes, reconstructs, and understands a radio message, similar to what happens in the communist legend of a special agent alluded to in the title, but what is eventually received by the semicyborg is the last message sent from an extinct humanity. Thus a revolutionary theme takes a posthuman turn. Zhao Haihong’s story weaves the revolutionary story into a dreamy romance that turns history into a nostalgic dream; the story intentionally misuses historical information to highlight the fantastic nature of the memory of revolution, not unlike the bubbles produced by the machine in the story.

  Chi Hui’s “The Rain Forest” (2007) points to themes of environmentalism as well as interspecies transformation, or, metaphorically, transgender or transracial identity. Fei Dao’s “The Demon’s Head” (2007) presents an allegorical image of the evil undead—clearly referring to dictatorship—that is made possible through inventive technology. Xia Jia’s “The Demon-Enslaving Flask” (2004) represents a playful experiment with the uncertainty principle that is nevertheless shown as being contained within human intelligence.

  Bao Shu’s “Songs of Ancient Earth” (2012) plays on the “red songs” of the communist era, which are infinitely reproduced and broadcast by A.I. nanorobotics; the concert of revolutionary songs begins to rock the entire universe: “The Internationale / Unites the human race” (or perhaps more accurately here, “… unites the posthuman”). A new class-consciousness, or a simulacrum of a class-consciousness, appears in the work of these younger writers. Compared with Bao Shu’s seriocomic parody, Chen Qiufan’s “Balin” (2015) reminds us obviously of the left-wing tradition in modern Chinese literature. This story, first published in Renmin wenxue (July 2015), situates the problems of identity, compassion, and human-nonhuman interaction (or, more metaphorically, interactions across classes, ethnic groups, and different minds) in the contemporary combination of budding capitalism and institutional corruption. Unlike Bao Shu, who presents a sweeping triumphant vision of A.I. successfully carrying out the revolutionary tradition, Chen Qiufan depicts the bleak reality of contemporary China, where class difference matters and creates the foundation for prejudice, violence, and hatred—a menacing situation that makes compassion and dignity difficult.

  Chi Hui, Fei Dao, Xia Jia, Bao Shu, and Chen Qiufan all write about virtual reality, A.I., and future worlds built upon a posthuman vision. At the same time, they all bring science fiction closer to China’s reality. These five authors are the youngest of the group, all born in the 1980s, and their future writing may decide whether the new wave of Chinese science fiction will continue to flourish.

  This anthology includes excerpts from Lo Yi-chin’s experimental novel Daughter (2014) and Egoyan Zheng’s posthuman saga The Dream Devourer (2010), both published in Taiwan. Lo’s labyrinthine narrative presents an imaginary realm of memories, speculations, metaphors, reconstructions, and dismemberments of the “other” space in terms of identity, sexual transgression, diasporic experience, literary reference, and historical consciousness. The chapter we selected is “Science Fiction,” which can be read as a meta–science fictional text. Lo’s efforts, like Han Song’s allusions to Lu Xun, also attempt to put science fiction back into the context of modern Chinese literature.

  Egoyan Zheng’s story unfolds in the year 2219, from which the protagonist reflects on the complex history of the long espionage war between humans and cyborgs. The confusion of identity, which speaks to Taiwan’s present-day political situation, is complicated by multilayered explorations of dreams and the political technology that turns dreams into tools differentiating cyborgs from humans. The heterotopia that emerges from the disorienting dreamscape inspires the protagonists to recognize that there is an ethical and epistemological gray zone between self and other, or between the human race and posthuman beings.

  Dung Kai-cheung, the most important contemporary writer of twenty-first-century Hong Kong, has also experimented with science fiction in unique ways that not only characterize Hong Kong’s cultural dynamism but also render Hong Kong into a metaphor reflecting the postmodern or posthuman conditions of the post-1997 new century. Victoria, the V city that Dung creates in his oeuvres, may allude to Hong Kong’s colonial past, its problematic present, and its postapocalyptic future. Dung’s most ambitious work to date, the voluminous Natural History Trilogy has many remarkable references to sf genre elements. The present collection includes selected chapters from Histories of Time (2007), in which Dung achieves a poetic reimaging of science fiction as a fanciful realm that opens to endless self-reflections and self-reconstructions. The novel presents a panoramic vision of the city’s imaginary history of its past, present, and future, all combined in the uncanny image of time—time lost, retrieved, reimagined, and represented.

  The book is divided into three parts: “Other Realities,” “Other Us,” “Other Futures.” Reality, humanity, and future are closely connected notions when talking about science fiction. They overlap, interact, and create intertextual relations defining what is real, what is human, and what is (future) history, while the guiding theme navigating all these stories is otherness itself. Science fiction is ultimately a literature of “cognitive estrangement,” as Darko Suvin has defined it;7 in a more contemporary context, science fiction is a literature of revelation that demonstrates difference—difference in religion, race, gender, class, ethnic identity; or simply difference in thought, emotional expression, or life choice. Difference also marks science fiction as a truly global genre encompassing all times and spaces of different ages, locations, and peoples. If there were an extraterrestrial intelligence reading our anthology, what would it (or he or she) think of the differences we have envisioned among us? If there were a superintelligence learning about human behaviors, what would it do about the identities or differences among us? In this sense, science fiction asks, in the end, an ethical question: how do we deal with the other? That also decides how we see ourselves.

  PART I

  OTHER REALITIES

  1

  REGENERATED BRICKS

  HAN SONG

  TRANSLATED BY THEODORE HUTERS

  On this day the architect came to the village. He was a young man and brought two assistants with him, both from his office. They erected a tent on some open ground and then with great impatience went all around to inspect the ruins. He also went to a place on the outskirts of town where the effects of the disaster were relatively slight to look for a workshop that could still make bricks. He later wrote a “Diary of Making Bricks” to recount this experience. In it we can see that at its outset, the work was pretty difficult. For example, he wrote this:

  …

  June 13: In the workshop’s mat shed we worked out the number and agreed that on the fourteenth and fifteenth they would prepare all the raw materials as well as make a few samples to set the standard; on the sixteenth they would begin production, with the goods being delivered on the twenty-sixth. But they did not submit a price, saying they would only know what it was after they started production. So we paid out no deposit, which left things a bit up in the air.

  June 16: It rained and it was said the site was flooded.

  June 17: We heard that the electricity had stopped.

  June 18: We heard that the crusher had developed mechanical problem
s. Perhaps the intention is to run the clock out and only then report the price. With a backup plan in mind, I also went to get in touch with a big factory, then gave the workshop another call, pressing them for the price and also mentioning “that other factory.”

  Through all this the architect persevered, leaving the impression that it was all for some sort of unnameable ideal.

  In fact, there had been people saying this had been futile from the very beginning; so no one would take any interest in it. The architect, however, stressed, “It will be useful; I have already seen the future.” People shook their heads in disbelief. In these times no one could tell what was going to happen even in the next minute. The disaster that had just taken place footnoted this.

  On June 17 in a place far removed from the disaster area—Shanghai—a press conference was held at the Chinese branch of a European art biennial where the exhibition curator introduced the “vernacular architecture” theme and the work of the participating architects. But because the architect himself was still at the disaster zone he could not attend, and his work was introduced by video and voice recording.

  The work was titled “Regenerated Bricks.” Because they were still in production, for the time being the look of the bricks could be illustrated only by computer, but from the drawings one could see they were square and hollow, a bit like ordinary bricks but somewhat darker; there were also red and yellow miscellaneous elements on them, along with scattered plant stalks. So in terms of form, they were mostly clumsy and ugly. The regenerated bricks had no sensuality to them, nor did they have any sense of shape: all they were was hard and with a bit more actual structure than the earth itself, and what was startling about them was that the regenerated souls trapped in them turned out to reside in this sort of plain hollow form.