The Chili Bean Paste Clan

By Yan Ge 

Translated by Nicky Harman

(2013, translated 2018)

Balestier Press

Xue Shenqiang, the owner of the local chili bean paste factory in the town of Pingle has a number of problems. One is the ever-present influence of his mother, Xue May, who is in her eighties. She keeps a close watch on the factory which has been in her family for generations. She makes sure that traditions are honored, the books are in order, and her son is doing all that he can to keep the factory productive and profitable. Xue Shenqiang acts as if his mother is a weight around his neck, yet he also knows that left to his own devices, he would quickly come to ruin. His brother, Duan Zhiming, is the more intelligent of the two. He left Pingle long ago to pursue a degree in economics. Trapped in the backwater of Pingle, Xue Shenqiang resents his brother, who, instead of behaving like a filial son, spurned his duty to the factory and his mother. When he shows up unannounced, Xue Shenqiang is certain that his brother will play the prodigal son and steal their mother’s affection. Xue Shenqiang might list his wife, Chen Anqin, as the greatest problem in his life. She has every right to be a terror to her husband, as he is an inveterate philanderer. Like everyone in Pingle Town, he must have ma and la in everything he consumes, the ma in the Szechuan peppers and the la in the chili. Hopped up on this fiery combination which he believes is a powerful aphrodisiac, he can be found in his off hours with his “bros,” pushing baijiu on prostitutes, bar girls, and the young beauties he hires to work in his factory. He even keeps a mistress in the apartment he rents out above his own! His poor wife knows too much about her husband’s infidelities, but Xu Shenqiang’s mother and sister, Aunt Coral, advise her to see the positive aspects of the relationship. They point out that she lives a financially comfortable life, her husband leaves her alone, and she is free to do as she wishes. Chili Bean Paste Clan is set in the 1990s and early 2000s when China’s experiment with socialism with Chinese characteristics is opening the door wide for those who want to embrace a new culture of consumerism. Chili Bean Paste Clan may be a delightfully crass and bawdy domestic comedy of a Chinese family as it enters the new millennium. But it may also be a critique of the breakdown of Confucian ideals. The men in the story are grasping and the women are trading their affections for gifts, money, shelter, and protection. Everyone in Pingle Town knows that the street where everyone winds up on the weekends is where 15 Yuan Street used to be. It has been cleaned up, but it is still possible to find prostitutes there, though they charge significantly more than 15 yuan. And of course, the narrator is something of a mystery. We know very little about her. She is recovering from a mental breakdown, and although she witnesses so much, she keeps her own secrets–as does Gran. The translation by Nicky Harman is superb.

“Sometimes it would be during a meeting at the factory when Dad was trying to call the laughing, chattering salesgirls to order. Or he was out drinking with his bros, knocking back the maotai, the air thick with smoke. Or, worse still, Dad would be in bed, either with Mum or else some young woman of his acquaintance, and, just when things were getting lively, A Pretty Sprig of Jasmine would ring out. Dad would feel himself going soft and, when his cell phone proved incontrovertibly that it was Gran, all the fight would go out of him. Floating gently to earth like a hen’s feather, he’d pick up the phone, walk out into the corridor, clear his throat and respond: ‘Yes, Mother.’”