Take a wild ride through contemporary Chinese society, which continues to accelerate at a blistering, unrestrained pace decades after the end of the Cultural Revolution. Red Guard Fantasies and Other Stories forces a reconciliation between China’s new urban sensibility and its centuries of tradition, and the results are certainly not predictable. Shouhua Qi’s stories are witty, poignant, absurd, and shocking. Part autobiographical, they offer a masterful depiction of the myriad world of jaded entrepreneurs, overzealous cops, karaoke addicts, dog lovers, liberated co-eds, and frustrated urbanites who move in and out of China’s colorful neon-lit cities and dusty rural villages; transitioning from one world to the other. Here is a China that is both superficial and plastic as well as profoundly righteous and moralistic. More than anything, Red Guard Fantasies is a deeply personal and powerfully moving elegy for China’s lost generation.
