Novel explores lives of Beijing's unnoticed street hawkers
In Xu Zechen's vibrant novel, the weather is yet another powerful obstacle in the lives of the capital's overlooked and embattled underclass, writes Clarissa Sebag-Montefiore
Running Through Beijing
by Xu Zechen (translated by Eric Abrahamsen)
Two Lines Press
4 stars
When rakish 25-year-old Dunhuang is released from prison, he is assaulted - by a dust devil. The polluted air fills his eyes, nose and mouth with fine grit, forcing him to sneeze and spit. The outside world - where sandstorms rage, shrouding the sun - is as bleak and inhospitable as life inside.
Storms, and the suffocating Beijing dust, appear time and again in Running Through Beijing, Xu Zechen's frenetic and beguiling novel about life in the capital's underbelly. Xu, an alumnus of both Peking University and the University of Iowa's prestigious international writing programme, is now well established in China's literary scene. But this novel - his first to be translated into English - deals with the urban disenfranchised: the youths operating illegally on the black market.
Xu has taken a long hard look at those who are usually overlooked: the prostitutes, the hawkers, the street peddlers
At its heart is the streetwise, yet endearingly wide-eyed, Dunhuang. After his arrest for selling counterfeit documents and IDs, and a three-month stint behind bars, Dunhuang must start again from scratch. He has nowhere to live, no friends to see and only a few yuan to spend. With his buddy and mentor Bao Ding still in jail for the same crime, life looks unpromising.
Then Dunhuang meets the enigmatic Xiaorong as she hawks fake DVDs by the side of a road. On his first evening of freedom, with nowhere else to go and following a beer-drenched hotpot dinner, Xiaorong gives Dunhuang her body and a bed. For a time, they cautiously enjoy a romantic and business relationship.
First, Dunhuang works alongside Xiaorong, counting the cash, canvassing business and serving as a bodyguard. Then he strikes out alone, pawning art-house films and hard-core porn to students and punters outside the universities.
Running Through Beijing follows Dunhuang as he struggles to survive - readers looking for much more of a plot than that will flounder. There are few cliffhangers or dramatic events. Rather, this slight book (it runs to just more than 160 pages) is an exquisite portrait of a city and its people.