Preparation: Kelly's Reading Materials

The fiction problem started with reading a review of Death Fugue by Sheng Keyi in the NYTimes. I got it on my Kindle (it's not available in print in English) and promptly forgot about it. Then one day, browsing the Kindle's contents, I found it and started reading. It's a pretty weird book, and I don't know if it's a translation thing, but the style feels most of the time very ordinary, then she creates repetitions during both realistic and surrealistic content. It also goes in waves of being boring and predictable, followed by super interesting descriptions and layers of scenes, then back to kind of boring. The ending was unsatisfying, but definitely strange until the protagonist kind of "woke up," which I had a feeling about the whole time. 

But: Reading Death Fugue made me think about how limited my understanding of Chinese literature (or any Asian literature) is. I also continually imagine myself in China as a bored Scarlett Johansson in Lost in Translation where she's just like lying around in a hotel room. Also going to be on the plane for a very long time. So, I bought a bunch of books, and I've decided to bring only these as a kind of literary immersion. Here's the list: 

• Blue Light in the Sky & Other Stories by Can Xue
• The Man with the Compound Eyes by Wu Ming-Yi (technically Taiwanese)
• A Dictionary of Maqiao by Han Shaogong
• The Columbia Anthology of Modern Chinese Literature
• Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio (old ghost stories)

Finally, How to Write by Gertrude Stein. I am most excited about the ghost stories, but also thinking about Stein and writing while I'm there. There are likely many weird story ideas coming to fruition in my soon-to-be overwhelmed brain.

Since I've had an unusual experience with Mandarin, and I feel mildly apathetic researching history, I am interested to see how the trip will go for me. Most of my tourist adventures will be, most likely, historical. I will also have to (gasp) communicate with people in order to get around, eat food, do stuff. Or, I could be immersed in reading ghost stories in incredibly old buildings, peeking around corners for soot sprites. 

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Other reading materials: 

The history books we own but will probably not be taking include

• China in the 21st Century by Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom
• On China by Henry Kissinger
• two books that have something to do with whatever Josh is working on in Chinese, so I don't know what they are
• a day planner from the Communist Party Training Center
• misc. language books (see Mandarin entry)
• Dealing with China by Henry M. Paulson, Jr.