by Mia Paton
Society has always been absurd, all throughout history. People are complex, stupid, and quite often downright ridiculous, if you look at them from far enough away.
Ghost Cities by Siang Lu shows us the absurdity that is society, the absurdity that people always have been. This novel jumps between several perspectives, past and present and further past. There’s the third person account of an idiotic Emperor of China millennia ago who demands all chickens in the country be beheaded because his father choked to death on a chicken bone. And there’s the first-person account of an Australian Chinese man, Xiang Lu, who lost his job as a translator because he can’t speak a word of Mandarin. And then there are those several third person perspectives of people related to our ridiculous Emperor, most of whom end up dead or sentenced to death for creating art that’s too beautiful, or looking too much like The Emperor in appearance, or something else just as justified.
I love a unique writing style – something with a bit of personality – and this is exactly what Ghost Cities has. It’s a rather unconventional novel, lacking a ‘normal’ plot, but it merges its perspectives in such a way that is so absurdly hilarious and yet thought-provoking at the same time. Refreshing and comedic. I wasn’t expecting to delight in the way a sentence was written on one page, to laugh at the newest and most stupid decree of The Emperor on the next, to have my intelligence and self-awareness tested on the third.
“Remember the time Xu Bei learned of her husband’s infidelities and banged the table so hard that all the pots and pans flew gok-gok-gok-gok-gok! (the sound of pots and pans) into the walls and came crashing out the window?”
No, dear author, I do not remember that instance, as you have never mentioned it before and I do not know this Xu Bei of which you speak, but I am most amused by the way you’ve worded it.
The Emperor is a jealous ruler, one that does everything in his power to make sure no one can take his place. The previous Imperial Taster is bludgeoned to death because The Emperor’s father died from a chicken bone (which is of course the taster’s fault) and labels an infant as the next Imperial Taster. This infant, of course, is not yet ready to eat solid food. Thus, a Taster to the Taster is appointed. Naturally.
Xiang Lu, dubbed #BadChinese on the internet after his company fired him for being unable to translate a word, becomes an online sensation overnight and catches the eye of Baby Bao, The Director. A rather extravagant individual, Baby Bao purposely creates films with mistakes: the boom mic is visible in some shots, the cameramen can be seen in mirrors, iPhones are taken out of pockets in films of historic times. The Director is famous for his ‘bad’ art style, but he of course believes all of his creations to be perfection – the perfection of imperfection. He demands #BadChinese come with him to China, to the abandoned megacity of Port Man Tou to film his latest movie idea: a 27-hour-long film of a past Emperor’s reign.
“Long ago, before the village called Min Qiang was known as the armpit of the armpit, there lived a nearby mountain of great renown.”
To anyone who read the blurb of Ghost Cities and got stuck on the ‘horny mountain’ comment, this is of course referring to that exact mountain – or, should I say, Mountain. I, myself, found this mention of a ‘horny mountain’ to be most intriguing, and, naturally, I wasn’t disappointed. After all, Mountain is none other than The Emperor himself (though, not exactly, but rather a double) and has the capacity to think thoughts and feel feelings. Hilarious and absurd, to be sure.
People can be selfish, ridiculous in their notions of their own importance, and absurd in their dealings of their own ideals. Siang Lu’s Ghost Cities makes you think about this idiocy through an interwoven comedic and refreshing story.
Mia Paton (she/her) is a writer and editor currently studying a BFA in Creative Writing at QUT in Meanjin (Brisbane). She has short stories published in both ScratchThat Magazine and Dawn Street Zine. Mia typically writes a mixture of historical fiction and fantasy, and is in the process of finalising her first manuscript.
