I have been a fan for Han Han since I was in primary school. It is normal that one’s taste of reading changes as time passes by. However, I remain passionate about reading Han’s work through all these years. There simply is something I can tune in to what he is talking about. It seems even as if his books accompany me as I grow up.
Han Han is commonly known as a post 80s writer with a strong personality. Besides the title of “a writer”, he now is also a successful speed racer in Shanghai as well as an amateur singer having released an album. He is successful according to both standards concerning possession and fame. What’s more, he is only 26 years old. Towards him, people’s attitude can be extreme: either like him or hate him. I think what results in this is, again, his strong character in the courage to speak up.
Up to now, Han has published 11 books including San Chong Men, Ling Xia Yi Du, Xiang Shao Nian La Fei Chi, Du, Tong Gao 2003, Chang An Luan, Han Han Wu Nian, Jiu Zhe Me Piao Lai Piao Qu, The Ideal City, Guang Rong Ri and Za De Wen. I have read most of these writings and I am among the witness to the growth and development of Han-style writing.
The book I read in this summer holiday is The Ideal City. The hand-written prologue of Han himself in the beginning of the book already reveals to us how simple this book can be: This fast and slow, humorous-sad fiction, is sheer enough to be without a preface.
As I read through the book, I was dragged into a half-surreal world. It tells a story about the everyday life of two hoboes. There is no certain plot but a chaotic life of they two seemingly without a beginning nor an end. It might seem boring or meaningless. Yet something offbeat often arises from the very simple narrations that make the reader feel stunning.
Read between the lines, I am surrounded by the typical Han Style. He is very good at narrating simple events in everyday life and then via normal logic, reason out seemingly absurd results. This is his way of showing irony to some problems of the society which annoy him. It is indeed Han-style humour.
The following are some brilliant excerpts from the book. From these excerpts, we can see more clearly the style of Han’s writing.
“About committing suicide, a schoolmate of mine who was a law major thought the only significance of it was that it is the only activity that you can kill someone without being sentenced to be killed by law.”
“Because after the explosion, most of the citizens had come to witness it and after they came back, shops and houses were found ransacked. People were feeling surprised—who’s so calm as NOT to see the marvelous explosion?! Who’s so free as to steal things?!” This narration made me laugh so hard. It is obviously preposterous. Yet it has the power to make people think about some acquainted scenarios in our daily life. Aren’t we also doing things that are ridiculous while we have totally no awareness of it?
In a situation where one of the heroes is fined and put into jail by the policeman and he asks if there can be an discount for the fine, the police should say: “you can have an 80% discount, as well as a RMB1000 cash voucher which you can use when you are here again, but this voucher cannot be converted into cash.” I immediately relised the place this situation happens most – in the supermarkets and some other consumer place. As we can see, this is a tactic of Han to express his irony. In this way, his dissatisfaction with today’s Chinese policemen is so obvious that suffice it to say that much.
In another situation, the policeman asks the hero for tuition for the “jail education”. The hero is surprised at how expensive it is while the policeman explains: “this is not included in the nine-year compulsory education, our education here is expensive because it is point-to-point taught by high-quality teachers, all of whom are with a professor title. We even have foreign teachers.” Similar to the last paragraph, this time the writing shows Han’s irony to the current situation of education. Undoubtedly, there are still a lot of problems in the Chinese educational systems today. Students are pressured by the non-stop desire of getting into high-ranking schools. Schools are continuously having an arm race of “hard power” and “soft ware” so as not to be eliminated by the fierce competition. It is doomed to be a long-lasting controversial issue in our country. It is an issue dealing with the extremely large population and especially low citizen quality.
As the plot develops, the hero is increasingly put into a dilemma by the policeman. Since he has no money, he is not allowed by the policeman to stay in the prison. However, in order to ship him off to where he came from, train fare is needed. Thus, the hero is forced to dig coal in exchange for the fare. At this point, readers are reminded of what? Obviously, the typical dark-minded Chinese mine owners who always exploit cheap labour of the coal miners.
Though the above is merely an excerpt of the book, we can already appreciate Han’s style of writing from it. Through a single situation, he can describe many different things to implicitly reflect those happen in real life situation.
As a post 80 writer, Han is inevitably being compared with the other well-known writers of his age. They include Guo Jingming, Zhang Yueran, Li Shasha… He appreciates the words said by Zhang Ailing, “Get famous as early as possible”, and he did does so. After getting enough fame, as well as money, it seems he has become more interested in what he likes and what he really wants to do. The result is he goes on to the autodrome to chase his dreams.
Han han is no longer comparing himself with people of his age, or with writers. Because he is, for he believes, the unique one.