The unexpected erupts, needless to say. Billy Graham is ejected for whistling Onward Christian Soldiers after a complaint is lodged by a player, and one of the Catholic schoolgirls, having revealed an imminent checkmate in a brilliant move, levitates up to the ceiling.
Several of these stories deal with political subjects, in particular the unexplained disappearance of dissidents. In these stories Kuo's taste for the bizarre and the illogical comes into its own. In such circumstances, what happens contrasts strongly with what can be said. John le Carre and other writers of Cold War spy thrillers have demonstrated how life under police states is a labyrinth of mirrors. Appearances deceive, and disappearances can't be talked about. This is precisely the world reflected in Alex Kuo's political stories. His humor, usually so tight-lipped and tersely-stated, here becomes ironic and bitter indeed.
In one of them, Definitions, a Beijing TV news anchorman displays a flicker of emotion when reporting the student gatherings of May 1989. He's later visited at his home by a tall figure in a long coat who hands him a document defining the "new definitive dogma" on disappearances. Transmitters of information are "forbidden to convey stories about disappearances, ever. They're demoralizing; they can panic the people and destabilize the government. Besides, it's not true; it's not scientific, people don't just disappear."
The story ends with the narrator looking out at a blank space. All Beijing has disappeared, and the only thing he is confronted with is an image of his own double. This is classic political surrealism. It could come from Kafka, or from almost any Eastern European writer from the communist era.
In the title story, some Chinese students studying in the US are discussing a forthcoming demonstration in favor of democracy in China. The group contains "half of Beijing's leaders' children all gathered in one room in America." They go to apply for a permit, and there remember that, as the demonstration's leaders, they have to buy face powder and lipstick so as to look their best in front of the TV cameras.
The narrator remembers Beijing 10 years previously and remarks: "We did it wrong back then, and we're doing it wrong again on this side of the Pacific. It's now beginning to be doubtful that we're ever going to survive the messiness of this part of our history."
Published in Hong Kong by Asia 2000, this is a collection which, though no masterpiece, improves markedly the more you read and think about it.
RSS