Qiu Xiaolong

A Case of Two Cities is probably Qiu's most political novel to date. Right off, Chen is forced to handle a case authorized from the highest levels of the Chinese Communist Party. Skeptics argue that he need not exert himself, because it will all get swept under the table in the end, anyway.
 
This is where Qiu's novels excel. Inspector Chen is working not for the Communist Party (of which he is a member) but for China. But for that matter, so are Liu Hulan (Lisa See's female detective), and so is Inspector O, James Church's North Korean detective working for his country not the ruling power. These are powerful sentiments, and perhaps they are necessary to get our sympathies. We want these people to succeed, because they believe as we do. In justice.
The eponymous two cities are probably Shanghai and St Louis (Qiu's current place of residence), but Los Angeles figures in the story before the group gets to St Louis.
 
The political aspects of the novel deal, of course, with corruption involving party members. Much is told to us about corruption and why it happens. Early in the novel, Chen's sidekick—Detective Yu—says how can there not be corruption when the corrupters are the very people investigating the corruption, all the necessary consequences of a one-party system. We saw earlier that Inspector Chen only makes about $65 a month, and he's relatively high. As in any country, when people who wield power need money, they wield power, especially when there's no clear alternative.
 
It was commonly said, while I lived on Taiwan, that folks who stole or swindled money on Taiwan would flee to the United States. I think that this was because although unethical, the money lending mechanisms in traditional Chinese society are not subject to law. So with the more modern mainland Chinese situation. Law probably exists in the PRC, but its application and interpretation probably do not easily yield to analysis. The government would have to claim to the US government that so-and-so broke a law and we want him back. There might not be a law that was broken even though several million dollars got diverted.
 
I love an extended encounter Qiu gives us between a Chinese writers group visiting the United States and the various persons meeting the group from the American side. He has probably seen this a hundred times during his academic career at Washington University, and I have witnessed a time or two, myself. While in China, a visiting group is treated like royalty. When in the US, the counterpart group of Chinese is treated more or less like anybody else. As an American, my defense of this phenomenon would be that we didn't ask to be treated royally in China, but there is no question but that the situation can be tense as well as humorous.
 
This is a sad novel, in many ways. I don't know how optimistically it ends. Certainly, our hero and his little band of Chinese patriots are giving their everything for their beliefs in China. But will it be enough? We'll have to wait a few years to see, but in the meantime Inspector Chen will strive to foil the bad guys, wherever he finds them...

Michael Broschat, July 2008

I'm writing this review to cover both novels, which I read back-to-back.
 
Loyal Character involves the issue of illegal immigration, principally from Fujian Province (across the Strait from Taiwan). The plot involves Chinese gangs (often connected with the triad system from decades past) and, of course, police who can be persuaded to look the other way. An American female US Marshall makes an appearance, and acts somewhat as a love interest—about as close as Inspector Chen ever gets to the subject.
 
When Red involves the death of a writer deemed 'dissident' by the Chinese government, although Xiao explores how easily this term is used. There are Cultural Revolution roots deep into this story, as is true to some extent in all Xiao's stories. He would have been a young teenager when the Cultural Revolution began, and I haven't read that he, himself, was transported into the countryside. We do get a lot of explanation for the various movements of those days, and this has been interesting to me.
 
Both novels take place during the 1990s in Shanghai, and when I saw that in his first novel (Death of a Red Heroine 2000), I presumed that he had written the novel years before he published it. But that's not likely for the rest of this series, and I'm guessing that Xiao is purposely setting the novels at this time, but for what reason I don't know. The oddity is that he, himself, left China by 1988, so was not present in the Shanghai of which he writes.
 
Xiao has admitted in an interview that his favorite character in these stories is that of Peiqin, wife to Inspector Chen's subordinate. It's easy to see why, as she embodies all the qualities of the ideal Chinese wife, from anyone's perspective. Increasingly, she also reflects the changes China was going through as it move(d/s) from a socialist economy to a capitalist one. Both Chen and Peiqin work for state organizations, Peiqin for a state-run restaurant. But as the novels progress over time, more and more state-run businesses fail (and therefore void the "iron ricebowl" that had been promised to their employees). Even in the successful businesses, the government employees seek opportunities outside their government responsibilities.
Inspector Chen's salary is noted as being 500 yuan a month. I was in China in 1992, and remember the exchange rate as being about 8 yuan to a dollar. In our terms, then, his salary was about US$65 a month, or less than US$1,000 a year. Housing (such as it was—we often see in the novels that state-supplied housing meant that one family lives in one room) was included in the government compensation.
 
We also see that that was the period during which some Chinese were becoming very wealthy, and nearly all Chinese had the same dream.
 
There's a very interesting side-story in When Red. Inspector Chen is given the services of a "K-girl" whom he'd met in a previous novel. 'K' stands for 'karaoke', and K-girls are understood to be girls who will sing for you in a private room. Sing or whatever. She is as much the embodiment of her generation as Peiqin is of hers. She is beautiful, smart, and capable (certainly describes every Chinese woman I've known). We see her interact with folks her own age (she's in college when she's not K-ing), but we also see her in front of her "house." One evening, Inspector Chen (about 20 years her senior) takes her to dinner at a fancy club, and she's in her element. Then he takes her home, walking her up to the front door. If there is one. They're in a slum, and he walked her to her house because it was night and the neighborhood was much less than attractive, just like the guys hanging around on the street corners. White Cloud had explained that she was the sole support of her parents, both of whom had lost their jobs at state-run facilities. Although her aid with the murder case was exemplary and her presence at his apartment sometimes disturbing (in that wonderful way such things are), Inspector Chen overhears her in a phone conversation near the end of the novel where she is telling a friend what a selfish lout he is and what a disappointment he's proven to be. What we can understand from this is not that she missed the sex to which he did not invite her but that he failed to accept her as his wife (or whatever), and thereby grant her the economic security she (and everyone else in the world) was seeking. Love was certainly never the issue for her, but we suspect that Inspector Chen might be holding out for it. Some people are just selfish.
 
Xiao must have a reason for staying in the 1990s. Although I have read his Red Mandarin Dress (2007), I was new to the series and didn't pay attention to the timeframe of the novel. He certainly likes exploring the effects of these social changes on the China he knew through the 1980s.
 
I wonder how much different it is in the current decade than in those tumultuous 90s.
 
Michael Broschat, July 2008