To the West, China may appear an unstoppable economic unity, a single high-performing whole, but for the inhabitants of this vast, complex, and contradictory nation, it is the cities that hold the secret to such economic success. From the affluent, Westernized Hong Kong to the ice-cold Harbin in the north, from the Islamic quarters of Xi'an to the manufacturing powerhouse of Guangzhou--China's cities thrum with promise and aspiration, playing host to the myriad hopes, frustrations, and tensions that define China today. The stories in this anthology offer snapshots of 10 such cities, taking in as many different types of inhabitant. Here we meet the lowly Beijing mechanic lovingly piecing together his first car from scrap metal, somnambulant commuters at a Nanjing bus stop refusing to acknowledge the presence of a dead body just feet away, or Shenyang intellectuals conducting a letter-writing campaign on the moral welfare of their city. The challenges depicted in these stories are uniquely Chinese, but the energy and ingenuity with which their authors approach them is something readers everywhere can marvel at. Featuring stories from locations including Beijing, Chengdu, Guangzhou, Harbin, Hong Kong, Nanjing, Shanghai, Shenyang, Wuhan, and Xi'an, the collection contains work from authors Jie Chen, Han Dong, Diao Dou, Cau Kou, Ding Liying, Ho Sin Tung, Yi Sha, Zhu Wen, Xu Zechen, and Zhang Zhihao.

Author Biography

Liu Ding is an artist who lives and works in Beijing. His first solo exhibition was in 1998 in Nanging, after which he established Pink Studio Space. He's a founding member of the Complete Art Experience Project, and from 2007 to 2008 was artistic director of JoyArt, Beijing. His work has been exhibited in China, Sweden, Berlin, Germany, Italy, Russia, the UK, and Switzerland. Carol Yinghua Lu is one of China's most active and dynamic art curators and critics. She was on the selection panel for the 2011 Golden Lion Award at the Venice Biennale and is one of the co-artistic directors of the 2012 Gwangju Biennale. She regularly writes for a number of journals and is the coeditor of Contemporary Art & Investment magazine. Ra Page is the founder and managing editor of Comma Press, an independent UK publishing house specializing in short fiction. He is also coordinator of Literature Northwest, a support agency for independent publishers in the region, and runs Comma Film, an ongoing film adaptation project that regularly commissions filmmakers and animators to adapt short literary texts. He is coeditor of The New Uncanny--winner of the Shirley Jackson Award in 2008--and editor of Litmus: Short Stories from Modern Science, voted one of 2011's books of the year by the Observer.