From the early 2000s until the Covid lockdowns, Hu Anyan was one of China’s vast army of internal migrants, moving between cities in pursuit of work. He did 19 jobs – shop assistant, hotel waiter, petrol attendant and security guard, among other things – in six cities. Although all these jobs were atrociously paid, they still earned him more than the one he tried for two years in the middle of this period: writer. (An 8,000-word story earned him less than 300 yuan – about £30.) Then, during Covid, he wrote…
Tag: Autobiography and memoir
The Beijing courier who went viral: how Hu Anyan wrote about delivering parcels – and became a bestseller
Hu Anyan is not a fan of online shopping, but, as he discovered during the months he spent as a courier in Beijing, plenty of people are. Not long into the job, he was assigned to delivering parcels to a large construction site. He didn’t have to deliver that many – 10 to 20, most days – but getting them to their rightful owners wasn’t always easy. There was a crane driver who was often in the air when Hu arrived. He would ask him to come again the next day,…
Red Pockets by Alice Mah review – finding hope amid the climate crisis
Eco-anxiety is not an official medical diagnosis, but everyone knows what it means. The American Psychological Association defines it as “the chronic fear of environmental cataclysm that comes from observing the seemingly irrevocable impact of climate change and the associated concern for one’s future and that of next generations”. Fear of the future, an ache for the past, the present awash with disquiet: into this turmoil Alice Mah’s new book appears like a little red boat, keeping hope afloat against all odds. Mah is a professor of urban and environmental studies…
Waiting to Be Arrested at Night review – the Uyghurs’ fight for survival in a society where repression is routine
A group of Uyghur friends are having a late-night chat. “I wish the Chinese would just conquer the world,” one says suddenly. “Why do you say that?” another asks, surprised. “The world doesn’t care what happens to us,” the first man replies. “Since we can’t have freedom anyway, let the whole world taste subjugation. Then we would all be the same. We wouldn’t be alone in our suffering.” It is an understandable outburst of bitterness. The Uyghurs are a Muslim minority who live mainly in China’s north-western Xinjiang region. They…