my best books 2017

The 8 best books I read for the first time this year (out of 28 that I have completed as of today -- obviously 13-year-old me would sneer at the pathetic amount, but 18-year-old me is certainly very proud of having read more than 2 books a month amidst completing the IB and starting uni.)

I got a goodreads account (@kangjiaqi) in august and log my readings on there (seriously though, goodreads needs to update its interface a little, it's still got that 2008 vibe... they should take some notes off the cleanliness and efficiency of letterboxd)!! also this page on my blog meticulously records when i started and finished reading a book

The Best: Do Not Say We Have Nothing
Currently my favorite book, a wonderful, wonderful story that, like most works about the Chinese diaspora, talks about the Cultural Revolution and the Tiananmen Square protests, but in a beautiful, elegant, and extremely sad way. Timeless, quiet, poised. Similar in style to All the Light we Cannot See, which is also amazing. Bought this at Geneva airport before embarking on post-exams grad trip, and boy am I glad that I had this book to accompany me during that week of sunshine and alcohol.

Special mention: Sour Heart (published 2017)
Jenny Zhang, poet, essayist, and now fiction author, is an indispensable figure of this generation and I dearly hope that she will be remembered in the years to come. As I say in my review, I have never encountered another writer with such raw, relentless honesty. Zhang is fearless. She is sharp and witty and straightforward and no-nonsense, and she is also tender and caring and full of love.

I bought this book at Shakespeare & Company in Paris, which is apparently really famous but that I only knew because Zhang had mentioned it in her essay that you can find online that I have now read a billion times, The Summer I Learned I Wasn't the Exception. I paid an extra few euros to avoid having Lena Dunham's name on the cover (the book is the first to be published by Dunham's new firm). Read in a tiny Paris hotel room and on the TGV back to Geneva. Also read How It Feels, which is mind-blowing, and They Pretend to Be Us but Pretend We Don't Exist (or something like that), Zhang's Buzzfeed essay about white authors' exploitation of non-white authors. Both are online.

Inspiring: On The Road (Original Scroll)
The original scroll is fantastic. This total chaotic blur is so exhilarating and exciting and I definitely need to do a US cross-country road trip. Oh my God!!!!!

Most recommended: Death's End
Everyone in the world needs to read Liu Cixin's Remembrance of Earth's Past. Enough said.

Required reading: The Chequebook and the Cruise Missile
Mother Roy goes OFF in this series of interviews where she talks about capitalism, neo-colonialism, and corporate globalisation in modern India. This and Capitalism: A Ghost Story are just must-reads for everyone.

Expectations met: The Name of the Rose
I'm writing this post less than an hour after having finished this book and it is definitely a Classic. All the 1-star reviews on Goodreads are hilarious because the people have totally misunderstood this absolutely PERFECT novel. Read in the Maldives (theology and semantics -- light beach reading, naturally.)

Underrated: Wind, Sand, and Stars 
The first book I read this year and it was such a good way to start off a year that, though highly stressful, ended up also being a year of contemplation and romance. Underrated because The Little Prince is so widely adored, this wide-eyed autobiographical account is so purifying and heart-opening that I just. Ahhhhh.

Page-turner: Call Me By Your Name
Also loved the movie. Recommended to me by Emily and devoured in one morning. Really quite good.

interview avec moi-même

q: comment espères-tu être dans l'année 2018?
r: ah. j'ai déjà fait un p'tit meme sur cette question, mais en fait j'ai un peu plus à ajouter.

d'abords, j'aimerais continuer à lire et à écrire et à regarder des films. j'ai des amis vraiment cools à l'université et j'aimerais faire encore plus d'amis cools avec lesquels je pourrais embarquer sur des aventures. j'aimerais découvrir oxford un peu plus: les rues, les cafés, les pubs... et vraiment apprécier la vie quoi! et devenir un peu plus saine, physiquement (plus de fruits, un peu de yoga), et aussi mentalement. même si on dit que l'hiver est pire en janvier et février, j'espère avoir moins de crises! j'suis pas sure comment je vais balancer mes études avec ma vie hors d'études parce que le semestre passé j'ai pas fait grand chose apart travailler pour l'uni et dormir. je vais devoir aussi mettre un peu de temps à côté pour m'entrainer en chinois (lire un livre! ou un truc de traduction peut être) parce que j'ai peur de tout oublier. ah, et moins de réseaux sociaux.

et ça fait assez longtemps que j'ai pas fait un shopping spree. j'ai hâte d'acheter des fringues quand le kilo vintage sale arrivera à oxford. j'aimerais vraiment inhabit my pretentious pseudo-intellectual indie artsy kid vibe en m'habillant un peu plus preppy parfois, avec des polos, du tartan, des cardigans, des pulls (!!!), et j'sais pas comment dire en français mais des buttons-downs. perles. et toujours plus de jumpsuits!

ok en fait j'ai la flemme de continuer donc voilà

mots

après avoir lu un livre pendant quelques heures, assise sur le canapé ou une chaise dans une position pour laquelle la jiaqi de 70 ans ne me remerciera pas, je trouve souvent que les mots sur la page commencent à flotter. ils se détachent de la page et se rapprochent de mes yeux, devenant de plus en plus grands. dans ce moment, j'ai un peu mal à la tête et je me sens toute petite face au poids de ces lettres noirs et étranges. des mots venant d'une langue étrangère qui, a un moment donné pendant mon enfance, a envahi ma vie. l'anglais habite dans chaque coin de ma vie et de mon cerveau et il refuse de partir. une colonisation culturelle.

maintenant que j'étudie à oxford, je me sens perdre mon francais de plus en plus. pendant la moitié d'octobre et tout novembre, j'amenais mémoires d'hadrian de marguerite yourcenar presque partout, moitié pour lire et me convaincre que je suis toujours francophone, moitié pour sembler cool au cas où on m'observe, petite chinoise qui parle couramment le français. après un mois et demi j'avais à peine lu 50 pages. yourcenar, c'est pas pour finir vite fait et recevoir un sentiment d'accomplissement! je pense que je vais devoir recommencer parce que parfois je commence à penser à autres choses en lisant, et je me trouve au milieu d'un paragraphe sans savoir comment j'y suis arrivée.

enfin bref. après avoir lu en anglais pendant très longtemps je dissocie un peu et je me demande comment j'ai permis l'anglais à me conquérir avec tant de totalité. je deviens dégoutée par la page devant moi; chaque mot représente une nausée construise de ings et de fuls. mais j'arrive pas à arrêter.

my best films 2017

A list of the 11 best films that I saw for the first time in 2017 (out of the 110 that I saw this year) but that weren't necessarily released this year. (Those that were released in 2017 are marked with a *)

I log all my films onto Letterboxd (@jiaqi)!

The Best: Moonlight*
Heartbreaking story? Check. Gorgeous cinematography? Check. A soundtrack that makes me want to weep? Check. This film, which I watched once in the cinema in Geneva, once on the Hong Kong-Taipei flight, and once at a screening at Oxford, is definitely one of the best movies I've ever seen in my entire life. Oh my God. Oh my God!!! OH MY GOD!!!!!!!!!!!! It's perfect!!!!!!!!!

Second Runner-up: Paterson*
Quietly enchanting, a slow, gentle romance that asks nothing of you but patience and silence. My review says enough. No amount of Star Wars can make me dislike Adam Driver now.

Third Runner-up: Mad Max: Fury Road
Cheekily watched this during the 10-day break that I had in my final IB exams. Exciting and absolutely bursting with energy, with as many non-CGI stunts as humanly possible, this movie will take you on a great adventure and make you wonder why more blockbusters can't be like this. And that's without mentioning the COLORS.

Visually delightful: A Cure for Wellness*
Call me a philistine, but, ignoring the plot and stuff like that, the cinematography here, you must admit, really is wonderful! And it's always a treat to see my favorite dead man walking, Dane Dehaan.

Delightful to all 5 senses: Call Me By Your Name*
I read the original book by André Aciman over one sunny Sunday morning in June, and watched this marvellous adaptation on a chilly November night, but both times I was totally seduced by this narrative, which drips with romance and just oozes summer charm. The beautiful Italian landscape drenched in sunlight; the sounds of gravel crunching underfoot and the sultry beats of Love My Way; and yes, although these senses can't actually be satisfied by a movie (for now)––the feel of cool water on your skin and the wind against your face as you whizz around on your bike; the thick, sweet smell of apricots, and the dry smell of books; and, of course, the taste of a peach. After watching it, I thought about it a lot. I decided that I really do want kids so I can raise them to speak five languages and travel constantly and love music and literature and art!

Instant classic: The Raid & The Raid 2
I'm glad Gabriel made me watch these, because this ruthlessly violent Indonesian action film and its equally thrilling sequel are the kind of film that I could watch over and over again and never get tired of. Apparently the director choreographed the Kylo Ren & Rey vs. Snoke's guards fight scene in The Last Jedi, and you can really tell because it's the best scene in the whole movie. When I die please tell everyone it's because the blind hammer girl killed me.

Expectations met: Logan Lucky*
I absolutely love heist movies but it's hard for me to find a movie that is as good as Ocean's Eleven. Turns out only Steven Soderbergh is allowed to make heist movies, because this is even better than Ocean's Eleven in that, instead of slick Italian suits and million-dollar props, it features the gummy-bear bombs of the proletariat. I watched this on the plane on the way to the Maldives, meaning I didn't have subtitles, which is a shame, but I will definitely be seeing this movie many, many times again. I was super excited for Logan Lucky and I wasn't disappointed at all.

Quietly fascinating: Casting JonBenet*
This was the first of the many films that I watched from the couch during my 10-day break between IB exams, and, having never heard of the JonBenet Ramsey case, I was blown away by this meta-documentary––especially the final scene. If I made a true-crime documentary this is most likely what it would look like. So, so interesting. It's on Netflix so watch it now!

Nerve-wrackingly good: Perfect Blue
Watched this on Halloween because cinemas in Oxford were playing it to celebrate its 20th anniversary. My first Satoshi Kon and I am not disappointed. Thought-provoking and exceedingly creepy for me to watch as a woman. Probably one of the most terrifying films I've ever seen. And the twist...!

Nerve-wrackingly good: Whiplash
How can I not include Whiplash? So intense I thought I was going to die. (I also really loved La La Land, by the way, but I never saw it a second time so haven't been able to confirm my love for it amidst the many people who told me it was overrated. I mean, it was no Moonlight, but still.)

Nerve wrackingly good: Good Time*
Watched this with Seb in September; I'd heard good things about it on Letterboxd and was surprised that it was being shown. It's quite arty so I don't know if it's an Oscar contender, but Robert Pattinson gives a really good performance in this dizzying, exhilarating, neon-signs-and-techno-beat-and-kitsch symphony with a lot of yelling people that is ultimately very, very sad.

dream 21/12/17

I had a dream that I went to a friend’s house and sat in their basement. They had an old thick television in the middle of the room and together we watched a movie where Bella Thorne holds a house party, during which there is a zombie epidemic so slowly the people inside the house get infected and she and Mark Ruffalo have to fight them. Then for some reason I had to watch it again, except this time I was in it –– but I knew that the epidemic was coming. Bella and I went to her house, which was in an apartment block mostly inhabited by old people. As we walked down the hall to her room, these old people, who were more sensitive to the epidemic, already began to become zombies. Their heads and limbs made jerking movements and there were cracking sounds as they transformed into zombies with mouths agape. We escaped into her apartment safely. The house party will be starting soon and Bella video called Mark Ruffalo asking him to come over. I knew that the zombie fight was about to ensue and I would have to participate, which made me feel queasy, so I tried to persuade her to cancel the party. Then I thought, “But if the party happens, everything will take place just like the movie. And it will be over soon. But if we change the storyline by not holding the party, maybe it won’t be a movie anymore… it might not end in two hours. It could go on forever.” That chilling thought is the last thing I remember.

I have too many zombie dreams.

I used to think they were IB stress-related, but I’m currently on holiday in the Maldives. I guess it’s anxiety about collections? 

FEMMES FATALES: on the portrayal of women in Liu Cixin's "Remembrance of Earth's Past"

After reading the first two books (The Three-Body Problem and The Dark Forest) of Liu Cixin's Hugo Award-winning trilogy, Remembrance of Earth's Past, back in 2016, I was finally able to devour the final volume's (Death's End) 720 pages over two glorious days upon coming home from my first term at uni.

So I've been saying this for a year now, but I can now reiterate it here with authority: You have not truly lived until you've read Remembrance of Earth's Past. So if you haven't read it, do it now. Naturally, this post will contain spoilers. You do not want spoilers. I accidentally glimpsed a huge spoiler for Death's End while trawling across Wikipedia and it took away some of the absolute awe I would have otherwise experienced. Overall I truly don't think my life will be the same now that I've been exposed to Liu's genius. (Oh, and, props to Ken Liu for achieving the Angsty Diasporic's dream: translation of Chinese literature, especially books that contain so many complex technical terms. Ken, you made me cry all over my toast with The Paper Ménagerie, and I've just ordered your novel on Amazon. I love you, Ken.) Everything from the human computer in Three-Body to his resolution of the Fermi paradox in Dark Forest, to the ten-dimensional universe proposed in Death's End had me completely overwhelmed. We humans are as insignificant in this vast space and infinite time as a speck of dust. Science is beautiful and the universe is terrifying. And if you gaze long into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.

me the entire time

But although I'm absolutely in love with this series and have been recommending it left and right (including to my Chinese teacher, for whom I suspect it was paradigm-shifting), reading Death's End, I found myself increasingly interested in Liu's portrayal of women. Despite a great amount of intelligent, capable female scientists being included, I am troubled by the equation of femininity with frailty, as well as the three great romances in the narrative to be represented as passionate obsession that cannot be truly understood by the women who are recipients of this love.

Of course, I've only read these books once each, and choose not to devote too much time or research to this analysis. This is merely a topic that I wanted to discuss a bit after reading such a profoundly impactful book. I also didn't plan it ahead so the structure is basically nonexistent. I welcome comments and would love to read a real essay on this subject!

Again, major spoilers ahead!

Eve

Let's begin with the idea of woman bringing forth the apocalypse, which is exemplified in two characters: Ye Wenjie, who triggers all of the events by being the one who contacted the Trisolarians, and Cheng Xin, the last woman left in the entire universe, who twice irrevocably changed the course of human history (leading up to the end of the Solar System) by failing to do 'the right thing'. Although these women can be seen as the antithesis of one another, with the 'evil' Ye at the beginning and the 'good' Cheng at the end, both of them are akin to Eve, who bit the apple and caused mankind to be exiled from Eden.

Both Ye and Cheng are fatherless, where a lack of masculine presence in their life pushes them towards femininity. Ye's loss of her father (who was betrayed by her mother) in the Cultural Revolution drives her to the despair that eventually causes her to betray Earth to the Trisolarians. The resilience that arises within her due to her hardships are associated with femininity: she tells Wang Miao, "A woman should be like water, able to flow over and around anything." (1:125) She uses her femininity as a shield to protect her from outside forces, and as a shell to contain her disillusioned soul. She embraces "women's topics" (1:318) and begins taking care of children, but these are merely a cover for the sinister ETO work she is doing in private.

As punishment for Eve's actions, all women for the remainder of history must experience pain in childbirth. In 1:316, Ye Wenjie is described to have experienced extreme pain when giving birth to Yang Dong, the product of an emotionless marriage––a pain that is literally "punishment for her betrayal [...] that exceeded all others." (1:316) This furthers her comparison to Eve, where both have committed the Original Sin and doomed humanity.

While Ye Wenjie's agonising childbirth is a result of the hatred inside her, the pain that causes Cheng Xin to go blind is born out of pure love. This again reinforces the inherent opposition between the two women.

Interestingly, Cheng Xin's mother never experienced pain to have her, because she was found abandoned. What does this mean for Cheng Xin? Perhaps this hails her god-like status, a painless birth who broke Eve's curse then reinterprets Eve, mother of humanity, as the Madonna, mother of Jesus (3:161): pure, virginal, sinless. Although Cheng Xin has no children of her own, she feels a maternal responsibility towards all of mankind in the future, partly because of her having been born in the Common Era and thus being technically older than everyone else. It is this maternal love that is her fatal flaw; it is the epitome of emotion (as opposed to logic) and consumes her entire being –– "maternal instinct," Liu writes, "was not subject to rationalisation." (3:162)

Similarly, a brash, brave, violent (i.e. masculine) woman ("a girl like that" (1:306)) is shown to have "mother issues." (1:306) This implies that the absence of either feminine or masculine presence in a child's life causes them to veer towards the other; an imbalance. This is likely to arise from the Daoist idea of yin (feminine) and yang (masculine) being in constant balance.

As the Swordholder, Cheng Xin constantly repeats the idea that she will be the soft, feminine leader, the opposite of Luo Ji's outdatedly masculine leadership. Crucially, Liu writes that "she was a protector, not a destroyer; she was a woman, not a warrior." (3:201) This creates a Manichean opposition between femininity and masculinity, stating that women are peaceful rather than war-like. Even ignoring the fact that such a statement reinforces gender stereotypes, this peaceful femininity is constantly represented as negative, a weakness that Trisolarians exploit in order to gain the upper hand. Whereas the violent, hypermasculine, "black leather jacket"-wearing (3:490), prosthetic-refusing-because-he's-just-that-tough-and-uncaring-about-personal-appearance "devil" (3:216), Thomas Wade, had a 100% degree of deterrence and, if elected as Swordholder, would have made the correct decision at the time, Cheng Xin's degree of deterrence was but a pathetic 10%, "like a worm wriggling on the ground". (3:216) It is her femininity that makes her stand out from Wade and the other candidates (all Common Era masculine men) and causes her to be elected by a feminised, complacent Deterrence Era society. Cheng Xin is soft like a worm, and the men and women of the Deterrence Era have "soft bodies––as if their bones were made of bananas." (3:135) A peaceful era results in the hard edges of war-like masculinity becoming redundant; whereas AA thinks that such a society is more "fully evolved" (3:135) compared to "savage" (3:135) men of the Common Era and that they are the pinnacle of human progress, it is this self-satisfaction that allows the Trisolarians (who have learned deceit and subterfuge from Earth while Earth's own society let themselves forget these things) to betray them. Their fragility is shown when they are all forced into Australia and "regress" (3:241) into rioting, cruel savages. Feminine Cheng Xin follows them to Australia and quietly, passively suffers, but the masculine Swordholder candidates become leaders in the resistance, actively fighting back against the Trisolarians and even giving up their lives for the cause.

When Cheng Xin reawakens in the Bunker Era, she sees that this new society has stripped itself of most of the Deterrence Era material comforts that made it weak; thus, "this was another age capable of producing men." (3:500). This phrase's harshness really bothered me when I was reading it––I think it's the words "capable", which makes so many judgements about competence and thus worth, and "producing", with all of its artificiality, and finally, of course, "men", which implies that Deterrence Era men were not 'real' men because they didn't have beards, low voices, or aggressive attitudes. Furthermore, "capable of producing men" links back to times when it was of the utmost importance for a family to 'produce' male heirs; Henry VIII wasn't a real, potent man, and his wives weren't real women, unless they could make sons. Does this mean, then, that the Bunker Era is the direct heir to the Common and Crisis Eras, with the feminised Deterrence Era being just an anomaly, a tangent of humanity that was reset?

Despite the two major mistakes that Cheng Xin makes (where Liu sets up hypermasculine Wade both times as the man who would've done the 'right thing'), she is forgiven because it is understood that she did so out of love and caring for humanity, unlike Wade, who only wants to advance without regard for consequences. Throughout Death's End, Cheng Xin is constantly portrayed as a divine selfless mother. Unlike Ye Wenjie, for whom feminine motherhood is but a cloak, Cheng Xin is nothing but feminine motherhood––it is the essence of her character. She reinvents wicked Eve by combining her with the saintly Madonna when she (along with Guan Yifan, aka Adam, and Sophon, aka the snake, who provides them knowledge through the computer, aka the apple) willingly leaves the Garden of Eden (Universe 647) to populate a world that is likely very dangerous. Although she and Yifan are unable to literally be Adam and Eve in the new universe as they'd originally intended, Cheng Xin's final act is to selflessly give up her ideal agrarian life to perish with the universe, allowing it to eventually reset––destroying the world, but in a good way. Cheng Xin is the ultimate woman, one to redeem them all.

Infatuation

I'm 80% sure that Liu Cixin fell head over heels in love with some girl in university but she didn't like him back and he's now either remained a bachelor or has married, but will still only really love her, and pines after her every day, fantasising about their beautiful perfect life. As wish fulfillment, he therefore makes it so that the male heroes of his books do end up with the absolutely ideal girl of their dreams. That's a perfectly reasonable explanation, I think, for the three weirdly obsessive romances in Remembrance of Earth's Past: Wang Miao to Yang Dong in Three-Body, Luo Ji to Zhuang Yan in Dark Forest, and Yun Tianming to Cheng Xin in Death's End. Note the use of 'to' instead of 'and'.

In all of them, the woman is first introduced not in her own right but through the perspective of the man (which is weirdest when it comes to Cheng Xin, who turns out to be the protagonist of the novel but first appears in Tianming's fantasies), who sees her as the one thing that will truly complete their life. She has a quiet, subdued, but still striking beauty; she is soft-spoken, extremely kind, and very feminine. Her very existence gives the man meaning.

She is often associated with nature, or more specifically, an ideal natural scene that the man conjures in his head––his 'happy place'. Wang Miao imagines Yang Dong in each of his landscape photographs, allowing them to achieve ultimate beauty: "Wang had always thought that his photographs lacked some kind of soul. Now he understood that they were missing her." (1:61) When she dies, so do the worlds inside him. Yet even in death she isn't left alone: her suicide is one of the mysteries that Wang Miao must solve, and her mother Ye Wenjie's story is told throughout Three-Body. Yang Dong is Wang Miao's motivation, and thus she drives the story forward.

Yang Dong never knew about Wang Miao's love for her though, and never returned his affections––instead, she loved another man, Ding Yi. Her punishment for this is death. Cheng Xin, in her turn, realises too late that everything Yun Tianming had ever done was for her, and spends her entire life repaying this 'debt' that she has towards him. Similar to modern-day friendzoned bros who complain that the girls they like won't sleep with them for being 'nice guys', there's the implication that, because Tianming loved Cheng Xin more than anything in the world, she owes it to him to love him back. In university, Cheng Xin had been kind to Tianming out of pity, but had never been attracted to him because, due to his withdrawn personality, he was "the very opposite of her type" (3:99). Although Tianming knew that he wasn't special and that she was nice to everyone, he allows himself to become obsessed with her, creepily trying to "feel the warmth from her body" (3:54) and wishing that "the breeze would shift direction so a few strands of her hair would brush against his face." (3:54) He allows all of his happiness to hinge upon one woman who had completely forgotten his existence. This is quite disturbing, but is framed as "romance!" (3:48) When Cheng Xin discover's Tianming's devotion, rather than thinking, That's kind of weird. I don't even know him, she realises that "what she had seen before were mere shadows; only now did life's true colors reveal themselves" (3:105). Repaying this love becomes her life purpose. Their love story then extends across billions of years, a Niulang Zhinü (the Cowherd and the Weaver, China's most famous mythological romance) for the space age. Despite all this, though, she is never able to love Tianming back the way he loves her, because his emotions are inextricably complex.

Weirdest, however, is the story of Luo Ji and Zhuang Yan. Luo Ji literally creates the woman of his dreams, an impossible, tender beauty, who is then actually found by Da Shi in real life and brought to his house to be his wife. Like Pygmalion, he falls in love with his own creation who had started out as a character in a novel but ended up consuming his whole life (and for whom he gives up his real-life girlfriend). Zhuang Yan is the ultimate manic pixie dream girl: with no agency of her own, she is plucked out of thin air for the sole purpose of fulfilling Luo Ji's own life and catering to his every desire. As Luo Ji says, she is "pure and delicate [...] everything around her can hurt her! Your first reaction when you see her is to protect her." (2:157) Most disturbing is the following exchange:

Da Shi: "Education: She's got at least a bachelor's, but less than a doctorate."

Luo Ji: "Yes, yes. She's knowledgeable, but not to the point where it calcifies her. It only makes her more sensitive to life and to the world." (2:158)

As Da Shi points out, tongue in cheek: "Dream lovers are basically the same for men of a certain type" (2:159)––young, beautiful, and submissive; 'not like other girls' (2:168). Because Zhuang Yan arrives in Luo Ji's home "for work" (2:166) and starts out by addressing him as 'Mr. Luo', there's an obvious power imbalance arising from the fact that she's his employee and thus must do whatever he wants her to do. She is obligated to be kind to him. This, and her childlike characterisation ("My dad said that..." (2:173), and Luo Ji even calls her by the extremely infantilising nickname Yan Yan on occasion), further perverts their relationship.

The fact that Zhuang Yan does indeed fall in love with Luo Ji and that they have a child together is creepy, but I seem to remember that she takes the child and leaves him at some point, which is pretty cool. I also don't seem to remember Luo Ji ever revealing to Zhuang Yan the truth behind how they really met, which is also very disturbing. Overall, Zhuang Yan's character serves but to show that Luo Ji is a selfish, self-centred, misogynistic man. Her appearance is a way to convey the hedonistic, indulgent life that Luo Ji leads while he ignores his Wallfacer duty. Yet at the end of Death's End, Luo Ji's love for her is portrayed as something beautiful but lost as he speaks to her through the Mona Lisa that she had admired in the Louvre at the beginning of their relationship.

Love in Remembrance of Earth's Past is represented not as something built out of mutual trust and communication, but a rather dangerous ideal felt by the man for the woman, who appreciates his feelings but will never be able to return them with as much intensity.

These representations of women aren't necessarily all bad. While Liu expresses flawed, outdated views on gender, he also creates places women at the center of science-fiction, which is important for a genre that often forgets it was invented by a woman (Mary Shelley). I haven't discussed two major women: the Trisolarian robot Sophon (and her lowercase-letter namesakes, the sophons) who exudes feminine grace yet can also be cold and cruel, and 艾AA. Do they conform to, or break, tropes? What is their role in the story? Perhaps they have none––why does the representation of women even have to be such a big deal all the time? In some cases, such as the ones I've discussed here, it's quite obvious, but do we really need to analyse AA in terms of her gender? Why can't she just be a character who exists in her own right? This is getting really long so I'm just gonna end it here. Nobody's probably read this far but I had a lot of fun writing this! Bye!

Sino Travel Blog 2017: Hong Kong

This summer after graduating from high school I embarked upon a two-month trip across Hong Kong, Taiwan, and mainland China. I'd originally planned on posting on this now-rather dusty blog daily during the trip, but this proved to be an incredibly arduous task, impossible to fit between enjoying marvellously cheap food, snoozing, and posting on Instagram every day (with, yes, an official hashtag: #GVA2CHN2k17. We are millennials, after all.)

So now, almost three months after returning from China, having spent idyllic weeks lying around watching movies before moving to Oxford, where I've now been for more than a month (time flies when you've got weekly reading lists to complete!), aided by photos I snapped along the way, I will finally begin to recount #GVA2CHN2k17.

First stop: Hong Kong...

Day One: June 15/16

Our flight to Hong Kong left at 3pm, so I spent the morning packing my €30 Amazon hiker backpack. I thought it would be absolutely full, but it turns out that half a dozen white T-shirts and H&M shorts, flip flops, a Spartan toiletry set (toothbrush, toothpaste, towels, and a Lush solid shampoo that would cause me some trouble later), a 10-year-old Sony digital camera, my iPad, and a bag full of chargers doesn't really take up that much space. I threw in some eyeliner and the backpack ended up weighing a little more than 8kg –– impressive, for two months. Blaise, on the other hand, brought a 19kg bag for a two week trip. Life is hard when you wanna look good on vacation...

With a stopover in Dubai, where Blaise nonchalantly purchased a pastel-colored Swatch and we sat down to catch up –– we hadn't really talked in the past year apart from bored back-and-forths in TOK –– we landed in Hong Kong in the late afternoon. After an hour or so spent moving from one sterile, air-conditioned environment to another, wrung out from economy class seats and back-to-back movies, we emerged from the Prince Edward MTR stop into an absolute cacophony of neon signs piled up one on top of another clamoring for space, and the frantic beeping sounds of crosswalk lights, and throngs of people huddled under umbrellas as if blocking the rain from above would protect them from the insurmountable humidity that slithered past the narrow streets and grimy balconies to clamber into our rolled-up sweatpants. 

Our hostel was Wontonmeen, which in any other circumstance would be deemed sad, damp, and small, but because it was joined to an organic coffeeshop and was frequented by hipsters such as Mark, the harem pants-wearing industrial design intern, was instead "cool" and "edgy". It had one large room with ten bunk beds, three toilets, two showers, a washing machine we weren't allowed to use, a common room that was actually outside and was filled with potted plants, a drying rack full of clothes, and a neon sign that spelled out HONG KONG (see above), a full-length mirror, a shoe rack, powerful air-conditioning, and an extremely kind, artsy thirty-eight-year-old lady for an owner. Blaise and I dropped our bags onto our bunks and set off to explore Mong Kok.

Eight Pearls Food Products

Day Two: June 17

The next day was probably one of the most eventful ones of the entire two-month trip. My friend Ariel, whom I'd met the previous summer at Harvard Summer School, met us in the morning, along with her friend Jen, who studies Film and Philosophy at HKU, and Jen's friend Jair, who studies Linguistics and East Asian Studies at McGill and had recently completed his year abroad, and we got breakfast at a joint with a queue snaking around the block and grumpy waitstaff who barked harsh questions at us in Cantonese. The food was amazing: a curious East-West fusion that consisted of macaroni and sliced ham in chicken soup, with scrambled eggs on toast and yuenyeung: half milk tea, half coffee. I still think about that meal to this day. 

Ariel in her natural environment (water... get it?)

Next we took the ferry from Tsim Sha Tsui to Hong Kong Island. The ubiquitous rain covered the view with a thin fog.

Question: What else did we do on that day? 

Choose from this list of possible answers: 

A) Visited Chungking Mansions (for about two minutes)

B) Purchased flowers from an old woman in the IFC mall that smelled strong, sweet, and sticky, like pineapples

C) Got sour plum juice (酸梅汤) and sugarcane tea

D) Visited a store called GOD that sold household things like teapots and wallets with cool Hong Kong designs

E) Went to a building full of small independent design stores with expensive tchotchkes

F) Rode a streetcar

G) Went to a typical mall in Mong Kok

H) Had a waffle with spicy Korean chicken on it

I) Had curry fishballs from a street stall

J) Visited Man Mo Temple and paid our respects

K) Got caught in torrential rain

L) All of the above

Solution: L, of course.

Ariel had a sore throat, so she purchased some remedial herbal tea from this stall in Mong Kok.

After a long, exhausting day, Blaise and I squelched back to the hostel in our wet shoes. We were surprised by how well we were holding up against jetlag. Setting the alarm for 9am, we went to sleep.

Day Three: June 18

We woke up at noon. Oops.

Blaise and I took the tram up the steep, steep hill to Victoria Peak, paying using our Octopus cards instead of purchasing a ticket, which is much more expensive! It was still shrouded in fog, and when we went onto the balcony, it looked as though we were looking out onto oblivion.

Soon the fog cleared a little, and from it emerged that legendary skyline.

Being cheapskates, we descended from Victoria Peak by foot, following winding paths through the forest. After a while, these turned into steep roads with minimal sidewalks that took a toll on our knees. I was wearing flip-flops because my sneakers were still wet from the previous day's thunderstorm, and Blaise's heel was developing a blister. We slid into the nearest sit-down place, which turned out to be an overpriced American-style diner for hipster expats. A white guy on another table was there with his adorable pug. The coleslaw was too oniony.

We chatted and wandered around the streets of Hong Kong island until night fell, then went home.

Day Four: June 19

I woke up with disintegrating cuticles, probably as a result of the change in environment –– Blaise's face was shedding dry skin. I wrapped up my fingertips with band-aids to stop myself picking at them, and we set off. It was noon by then, but we chalked it up to jetlag. We weren't too worried, because our friend Seb was in the air and due to land in Hong Kong in the afternoon, and that was all that mattered. Seb had been working at a conference in the ILO for two weeks, so hadn't been able to join us at the beginning. 

Thus the trio for 'phase one' of the China trip was completed. We were originally supposed to be four –– the four students who made up the most fun table in Year 11 Spanish –– but unfortunately Yasmin wasn't able to make it. We missed her dearly!

Blaise and I killed time munching baozi at Kowloon Park, visiting a small museum, and checking out Canton Road and the waterfront at Tsim Sha Tsui again, before making our way back to the airport. 

Referencing Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters at MUJI.

We checked Seb into the hostel too and went out for a walk around Kowloon. It started raining again, and as we wandered past crowds of bobbing umbrellas, Blaise fell in love with the 7-Eleven umbrella that some people were toting around, so we walked around, checking each store location, until we found him one.

We ended up in Fa Hui Park and its empty sports court whose shallow puddles glinted under the lamps. Following near-empty streets and going out of our way to climb overpasses, we returned to our hostel via the flower market. 

Day Five: June 20

Woke up at noon again. It was becoming more and more difficult to make a good excuse for this, and it would become an awful habit for the next two weeks. :( 

Had dim sum at a nearby place called Ming Dim Sum. We queued for around 15 minutes in the rain, but it was totally worth it for the grilled wonton, the pork and century egg congee, the cheung fan, the chicken rice wrapped in lotus leaves, and of course, the beautiful white, fluffy char siu buns that were as soft as clouds and as sweet as a kiss. The best feeling in the world is introducing your friends to something you love and seeing them love it too. Nursing our food babies, we set off for the afternoon.

We took the gondolas on Ngong Ping Island to see the Big Buddha. It being typhoon season, the weather was still very overcast, and we were initially hesitant about spending money on the télécabines if we weren't even able to enjoy the view. We hadn't considered that the view might be enhanced by the fog.

We lurched forward slowly, passing murky waters, construction projects, and lush green foliage. Ahead was absolute nothingness –– cue that track off the Interstellar soundtrack that makes you feel like the only living being in the universe. 

Up at the top, cute orange dogs lazed around on the floor. The Buddha looked splendid, only barely outlined from behind the fog as we looked at it from the bottom of the steps. We climbed higher and higher, and its forms materialised until it was colossal and we had to crane our necks to see it. Inside, there were rows of people's ashes, and I discovered, from the cards and flowers placed in abundance, that this was Anita Mui's resting place.

We'd been playing Yumeji's Theme in the gondola, so in the evening we checked out Goldfinch Restaurant, where they filmed the famous diner scene from In the Mood for Love. It wasn't that good, and we weren't able to get nice photos. Still worth it, though. After pho, we went back up to Victoria Peak to catch the cityscape at night. 

We had been here for only a few days but I was already being devoured by mosquitoes. It turns out I'm weirdly sensitive to mosquito bites, because not only did I have triple the amount of bites my friends had, but they also swelled to astonishing proportions. We stopped by a Watsons and I purchased some mosquito products to fool myself into thinking such things would make a difference. Obviously mosquitoes are a big issue in Hong Kong, because there was a whole aisle of mosquito sprays and anti-itch lotions. The choice was overwhelming. I stood there for what seemed like an eternity, trying to decide which one was cheap but effective without looking like an idiot. In the end I settled for a spray that had a picture of Gudetama on it, because priorities.

Then went to the bottom of the HSBC building to look at cool lights. When Blaise had taken enough photos, we went to a bar that a friend had recommended in Lan Kwai Fong. We talked for hours over mojitos and caught the last MTR home. 

Day Six: June 21

This was a much more relaxed day. We visited the HKU campus in the afternoon, with its gorgeous architecture, steep hills, and relentless mosquitoes. 

There was an extremely hipster café next to the campus called ethos that sold stuff like kiwi smoothies and crème brûlée. We sat there, enjoying the air conditioning and looking at memes on Instagram.

In the evening we were invited to dinner by my parents' college schoolmate, Sui a-yi, and her son. She told us to meet her at the Hong Kong Bankers' Club, which could only be accessed via a really high-tech elevator from a high-end shopping mall. Once we arrived, we realised it was an extremely fancy, exclusive location, with a low-key front desk that made it look like more of an office. We were barred from entering, though, because shorts, flip-flops, and sneakers apparently weren't part of the whitecollar dress code. Sui a-yi wanted to see if we could borrow some jackets to put on, but this wasn't allowed. Instead we had marvellous Argentinian steak that cost so much, we felt extremely guilty. Later we discovered that Sui a-yi was the CFO of Bank of China (Hong Kong). So it wasn't that bad. And the Occitane lavender lotion box-set we'd purchased for her as a gift probably wasn't that impressive to her. She was a really nice lady. 

Day Seven: June 22

Started the day by getting tagliatelle carbonara at the Wontonmeen café. Blaise and I had had it once a couple of days ago, ordering the meals ten minutes before the kitchen closed. It had been cooked up behind the bar by the barista using a teensy-tiny pan, and had been served with a runny egg and a smattering of pepper. I'll let my short-lived journal explain how much we'd loved it: 

(Falling in love, as it turns out, does indeed feel as good as that carbonara.)

So on that day we ordered the carbonara again. Unfortunately it didn't taste as good as the first time. The egg wasn't runny enough. I was sad. 

The magic always wears off. Thus is life.

We took the MTR all the way up north to Sha Tin, where the Hong Kong Heritage Museum is located. The MTR station is connected to a giant mall (not to be confused with MTR stations that are also malls, with underground MUJI To Gos and Mrs Fields Cookies) and we wandered around for a while, confused by Google Maps. Eventually we realised we had to go through a store and step out onto a balcony, where employees were taking a smoke, then cross a bridge into another section of the mall... Finally we arrived. The reason why we were so interested in the Hong Kong Heritage Museum was because, at the time, a lot of Hong Kong museums were closed for renovation. Back when Blaise and I were killing time waiting for Seb's plane to land, we'd visited what we thought was the Hong Kong Heritage Museum in Kowloon Park. It turned out that it was actually the Hong Kong Heritage Discovery Centre, a building with some worn-out exhibits (a lot of things were out of order) that illustrated the history of the city with some slight pro-PRC undertones. Stunned by the fact that there are two institutions by the same name, we went in search of the true museum. And when we found it, it was a little anticlimactic.

I really don't remember what was inside the museum. One of the temporary exhibitions, I think, was about constructing the Louvre. Another was about Jin Yong / Louis Cha, the prolific and revered martial arts author, which made me really happy because I love Legend of the Condor Heroes. I tried to explain Jin Yong to Seb and Blaise, but I don't think they really got it. It's something you have to experience. 

The museum played Erik Satie's Gymnopédie No. 1 on a loop. Blaise and Seb didn't recognise the song. I was filled with disappointment. 

We took a nice stroll along the Shin Mun River and then returned to the city center. For dinner we took up Sui a-yi's recommendation and tried out bo jai fan (rice cooked in a clay pot with meat on top) at this grimy restaurant in Yau Ma Tei where the bright lights glared into our eyes. We got some chrysanthemum tea to go with the dish, and proceeded to have one of the best meals of the entire trip. Seb and Blaise finished the whole thing, but it was too much for me –– and I personally wasn't interested in scraping burnt rice off the sides of the pot, although apparently it tasted excellent. It was a little shady, but we know the adage: the shadier the ethnic food place, the better the ethnic food. 

Bellies full, we wanted to go to sleep early so that we could catch the flight to Taiwan the next morning. But as we were packing up, the proprietor of the hostel invited us to a movie night that she was hosting. Blaise stayed in bed to text his girlfriend, but Seb and I went downstairs and chatted with some of the other hostel guests in the closed Wontonmeen café. It looked so different empty and with the lights dimmed: I felt like I was partaking in something secret and sacred. Crammed in the back room, where she had installed some cinema seats, we watched Ah Ying (1983), a sort of hybrid documentary about a girl who sells fish at a market, but decides to become an actress. She falls in love with her teacher, who is like twice her age, but it's quite a beautiful and contemplative film overall. And Ah Ying is played by the real-life Ah Ying who inspired the movie. 

To be continued...

new year's resolutions are fake

I've been adjusting quite well to university. I'm trying every day to keep my personal space neat and tidy, and thus avoid cluttering my mind with physical worries. I'm doing things daily that I didn't do back home because I was too lazy to: making my bed, opening the blinds, putting on face cream morning and evening, wearing makeup, wearing nice outfits, waking up at 8, going outside. I'm really happy with where I am –– I love my subject, which is really interesting but also highly challenging; I have a fulfilling and supportive relationship; I get excited about things; I have interesting conversations with people; I go to archery once a week; I'm writing letters to different people; I have Spotify Premium!

Some things I can still improve:

• Eating more fruits and vegetables. I realised last Wednesday that I hadn't had a real vegetable in a week, so I went out and bought a bag of carrots and 5 apples and I've just been crunching on them. I'm nowhere near my 5 a day though.
• Focus on one big project. Choose from:
• Translation
• My absurdist novel
• A series of short surreal stories set in Oxford
• Be a bit more social, as in trying to meet more people/hanging out with a wider range of people.
• Do some yoga like my mom keeps telling me to.
• Use that cleansing foam to wash my face.
• Stop going on Instagram explore.
• Try to read my leisure books more.

A poem I worked on from June (?) to September of 2016. I had originally planned on publishing it in my magazine, perhaps, but decided against it, because I didn't want 小季阿姨 to see it (and I still don't). In year 13 (2017) I created Hiroshima mon amie, a work of performance art with references to Ren Hang's poetry (which I translated and can be found on this blog) as well as the movie Hiroshima mon amour, where I paint a portrait of Elise and then burn it as a way to find closure. Originally conceived as just another exhibition piece needed for IB Art, I found that it actually helped. Afterwards, I no longer felt the need to create art about Elise; I had finally reconciled with the truth. Between 2013 and 2017 though, I did write 3 fully completed works of writing about Elise. This is one of them. The mahjong theme was revisited in Good Things Come in Thirteens, a poem about body and physicality that appeared in Sine Theta's issue #3.

See English text at the very end as blurb/footnote to the poem, which is pretty nonsensical without it.

The poem started out as a simple exercise in Chinese wordplay, whilst being bored in Chinese class. As with most of my work, it gradually developed until it revealed my true concerns at the time of writing. I then refashioned it around the true theme that I had to discover through freehand writing.

----------

上吊英雄传

Jiaqi Kang

ladies and 乡亲们

能听得见吗？

给我好好听着

我好像丢了东西

我好像丢了南北

能看得见吗？

给我好好看着

我好像丢了眼镜

我好像丢了眼睛

早就化成了灰

早就化成了霉

我真倒霉

1.东

日出

东邪

赤着脚 踩着沙滩

又粘又湿的沙子抓住赤的脚

年年出去玩沙子

蓝

天

蓝

海

赤着脚 踩着走廊里的地毯

踩着灰 踩着你我

踩着一种奇怪的骄傲

黄河向东流哇

黄皮肤 黄土地

电视上节目上

44 63 66 67

邓超嘎叽嘎叽嘎叽

we are 伐木累

不觉得好烦吗？

不觉得超级无聊吗？

看的清楚吗？

2.西

夕阳

西毒

猴年马月的某个周六

画展顾长卫乌云汉堡蜡烛夜晚街道

沉默在黑暗中的街道

接下来到lord nelson pub喝啤酒

那金色的透明的恶心的液体在

金箍棒里装着好高好高

高到天空

大闹天宫

哎

我妈要是问的话

就说咱们吃饭吃的

超级特别非常的

晚

好吗？

还有佰意楼下厕所旁边卡拉OK

日内瓦唯一的正宗的中国的卡拉OK

男女

女男

邓丽君像蜂蜜一样

又粘又粘又湿的蜂蜜粘住你我

贼猫晚上来敲门

用爪子抓门敲门

唱着一口独上西楼

谁呀

才刚九点就已经唱的这么high

冲完厕所独自一人上楼梯

不觉得好可笑吗？

你还记得吗？你还记得吗？

3.南

星空

南帝

难题难到你了吗？

那缺乏氧气的教室里有你

那充满灰尘的走廊里有你

赤着脚 踩着楼梯上西楼

一楼 二楼 三楼 四

那古老的桌子旁有你

那旅馆的白床前有你

羊年洋气喜羊羊

周五晚上的气氛里有你

吃喝拉撒看电视

中国好声音3

中国好声音4

中国好声音一起像铁丝一样勒死

那个啦啦meme手心抱着陶瓷脑袋

我的内心几乎是奔溃的

遮住眼睛难道就看不见了吗？

你说孟姜女哭长城那时候才几岁呀

眼里那么多泪

脸上那么多泪

那么多泪的时候倒立根本没用

（至少能洗个头）

看的清楚吗？

听的清楚吗？

你还记得吗？

4.北

月光

北丐

我那天忘了在哪里又

听到了月光下的凤尾竹

我那天忘了在哪里又

看见了你画的那些小人

它们一个一个的那么

渺小

苗条

这不是你所要的吗？

你为什么不回答我？

你为什么不理我？

我有做错什么吗？

是因为我那年夏天没有在whatsapp上回你吗？

那两个蓝色的弯勾是不是和毕加索一九零几年一样

那样甜蜜？

邓丽君像蜂蜜一样

又粘又粘又湿的蜂蜜粘住你我

明月光代表我的思念

地上霜代表我们俩之间的友情

我们当年是最好的朋友

现在应该说闺蜜吧

我们还是好朋友吧？

你答应我好吗？

你去哪里了？

你为什么不理我？

中神通

眼神里的疼痛

心里窝着一只死苍蝇

你还记得吗？

当然不记得 没事儿 我知道你不在

我知道你没在

我四处寻找你

我走遍江湖寻找你

终于在灰尘之间发现了你的骨髓

看来这武侠的命实在是不适合你

你的眼睛从背后看着我

看什么看？看什么看？

轻轻的你走了

正如你轻轻的来

闭上眼睛睡吧

明天还得早起

该你坐庄了 快扔骰子

打十三幺是永远都不会和的。

---

English text:

This poem’s structure is inspired by the popular series of Chinese martial arts novels by Louis Cha, The Legend of the Condor Heroes. In it, the Five Greats of the wulin are given the following nicknames: Eastern Heretic, Western Venom, Southern Emperor, Northern Beggar, and Central Deity. The wuxia theme runs parallel to fleeting impressions of past events, references to Chinese popular culture, and accusatory questions. Ultimately, the work is about my best friend, who killed herself in 2013, and the moments she would have experienced alongside me if she were still alive, as well as the numb feeling of disorientation that still surrounds her absence. The style is in part inspired by the poetry of Meilan Steimle, some of which you can read in our first issue.