Ruined City

By Jia Pingwa

Translated by Howard Goldblatt

(1993, translated 2016)

Chinese Literature Today

University of Oklahoma Press

When published in 1993, Jia Pingwa’s Ruined City was immediately banned, ostensibly for Jia’s graphic depictions of the protagonist’s not infrequent sexual liaisons. But these scenes, tender, transactional, vindictive, or degrading, are but one arm of Jia’s attacks on the moral and ethical upheaval brought on by Deng Xiaoping’s embrace of “Reforms and Opening Up” and “Socialism with Chinese Characteristics.” Experiencing a flood of foreign investments and rapid growth, Deng supercharged China’s burgeoning light industry by establishing Special Economic Zones where entrepreneurs were encouraged to engage in capitalist business practices. Critics of this drift toward capitalism, including Jia Pingwa, noted that the flood of wealth and investment created social problems, such as massive relocation of citizens from rural areas to economic boomtowns, unsafe working conditions, low pay, congested living conditions, stifling pollution, and a dramatic increase in prostitution. Jia plays out China’s drama of eroding cultural values, the rush to profit at any cost, and rampant corruption in miniature when a well-known writer, Zhuang Zhidie, and his literary magazine accidentally offend a fellow writer and are forced to engage in a variety of countermeasures to stave off a lawsuit. Zhuang, once a big buck in the literary world, hasn’t written much of anything in years. He has enough trouble dealing with his wife and his mistress, and now he has to call in favors from fellow writers, artists, businessmen, and local politicos to avoid a public trial. He is focused on preserving his status and legacy, so he is willing to gamble on any scheme that might offer him protection, engaging in increasingly complex efforts to “gift,” bribe, and coerce relatives and erstwhile friends to dig him out of his troubles. But Zhuang, ever the Lothario,  can’t help himself from compounding his suffering by taking up with women who are drawn to his success as a cultural icon and standard-bearer of the previous generation of writers. Like an elder statesman, he nurtures his own fame and embodies Kissinger’s adage that power is the greatest aphrodisiac. Zhuang’s power lies in his creative use of his network of connections, which he uses as capital in his increasingly comic efforts to bamboozle everyone within his orbit and evade the inevitable. But how can he escape further complications when his libido is his great steersman? And what won’t this man sell? 

“You are a sly tiger. I know something’s up any time I see you smile. But you already have everything, so why do you want a piece of my calligraphy?” 

“I collect famous people’s calligraphy.” 

So they set up a table and spread out a sheet of rice paper. Zhuang picked up a writing brush, but hesitated. “What should I write?” he asked as he cocked his head. 

“That’s up to you. Something you’ve recently come to understand. When your fame reaches the heights, people will want to study your life, and I will have primary material.” 

Zhuang thought for a moment, then wrote: The wind dances gracefully when the butterfly comes The person departs and the moon laments. 

“What does that mean?” Zhao asked. The butterfly [die] in the first line is clearly from your name, and the moon [yue] in the second line is probably your wife, Niu Yueqing. I can figure out your use of ‘gracefully’ and ‘laments,’ but not ‘comes’ and ‘departs.’” 

Zhuang ignored him as he wrote in smaller characters on the side: Zhao Jingwu asked me for this, so I copied some ancient lines. I know what I know and I know what I do not know. My words may not be worth a thousand apiece, but in three hundred years they will be cultural artifacts and can sell for eight hundred. If Jingwu has descendants, they will inherit tens of thousands. That’s it, I’m done.

Zhuang herewith lays down his brush. 

Zhao clapped in joy. “Terrific,” he said with a laugh. “Definitely worth thousands.”