Interviews

Bringing Crazy Rich Asians to the Big Screen

Joan Vos MacDonald

Joan Vos MacDonald talks to best-selling author Kevin Kwan

When Kevin Kwan wrote the novel Crazy Rich Asians, he had no idea he might change Hollywood. The book, which focuses on the story of Chinese American professor Rachel Chu and her “crazy rich” fiancé, Nick Young, quickly became a bestseller, thanks to a classic romantic plot set in the glittering international stomping and shopping grounds of Singapore’s financial elite. Two more books, China Rich Girlfriend and Rich People Problems, followed to complete the trilogy. Now the Crazy Rich Asians film is set to hit US theaters on August 15.

Essays

Police and Thieves

Dylan Levi King

Dylan Levi King on Liang Xiaosheng’s untranslated masterwork Floating City

It’s one of the best novels published in Chinese in the last three decades—and since it hasn’t been translated into English, you’ve probably never heard of it. With so many worthy contemporary Chinese novels untranslated, I know that’s not saying much, but believe me when I say: this is my number one on the list of books that need to be translated into English, stat. Liang Xiaosheng’s Floating City (Flower City Publishing House, 1992) is the missing link between Republican Era science-fiction and dystopian visionaries like Chan Koonchung. It also manages to be funny as hell, equal parts subversive and sentimental.

Dispatches

My Father

Karoline Kan

The first gaokao after the Cultural Revolution – Karoline Kan

For years, I despised my father. In my eyes, he was the most irresponsible dad in the world. He wasn’t earning money to support us. He didn’t enjoy family gatherings, and was always the first to leave the table. He didn’t care whether his kids were happy in school or not, but would be angry if we didn’t perform as well as he expected. He often quarreled with my mother, for reasons I didn’t understand.

“Who can you blame? It’s your own fate!” My mother would shout at him. Father would just stay silent, turn to the other side of the room and light a cigarette, while my mother again repeated the story from more than thirty years ago which in her mind led to father’s bitterness. Through the cigarette smoke, I remember seeing tears in his eyes as mother reminded him of the pain.

Reviews

Seeking Identity in China’s Shadow

Jason Ng

Jason Y. Ng reviews Generation HK by Ben Bland

Unpacking the young generation in Hong Kong is a tall order, not least because a singular, archetypical “Hong Kong youth” does not exist. The cohort is as diverse and divergent as it comes, from socioeconomic background and upbringing to education and exposure to the wider world, to values, ideals and aspirations. It defies stereotypes and generalisations.

Ben Bland, a British correspondent for The Financial Times, is in a unique position to take on that ambitious project. Whereas Bland’s extensive experience reporting in Asia—including stints in Singapore, Indonesia, Vietnam and Myanmar—has given him a broad field of view, his relatively short tenure in Hong Kong—just over two years—allows him to look at its people through a long-range lens.

It is that unadulterated objectivity and his unquenched curiosity that make Generation HK: Seeking Identity in China’s Shadow a discerning and refreshing read.

Reviews

Wrestling with the Text

Eleanor Goodman

Eleanor Goodman reviews The Reciprocal Translation Project

One hardly knows where to begin with this tangle. Here we have poets who have “translated” each other’s work, despite largely not knowing each other’s languages. This is done grâce à people mysteriously labeled “bilingual specialists,” who put together something called “literal translations, including several options for words that have multiple meanings.” That is to say: they translate the poems. So why are these “bilingual specialists” not the “translators”? The point, as I take it, is to save that particular appellation for “the poets” involved in the project, an issue which I will return to below.

Translation is a notoriously tricky business, and no one really agrees on what it is and what it is not.