Maggie Shen King and Chen Qiufan (Stanley Chan) in conversation

Published as part of Vector 293 exploring Chinese SF.

In this cross-interview, we have two prominent writers interview each other about their respective debut novels. Maggie Shen King is the author of An Excess Male, one of The Washington Post’s 5 Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Novels of 2017, a James Tiptree Jr. and Lambda Literary Award Finalist. Chen Qiufan (a.k.a. Stanley Chan) is the author of Waste Tide, which has been praised by Liu Cixin, China’s most prominent science fiction author, as “the pinnacle of near-future SF writing.”

Maggie interviews Stanley

Maggie: For those of us who recycle diligently, it’s easy to become complacent and forget about the magnitude and consequences of our consumption. I really appreciate that Waste Tide brings to the fore the sheer volume of the Western world’s electronic usage and creates in the process a twenty-first century waste land in its electronic recycling center. I understand that you grew up near Guiyu, the town that inspired your novel. What do you hope to accomplish in elevating this issue to center stage? As China becomes a superpower and increasingly begins to turn away this sort of work, what are your thoughts and hopes for the emerging nations of the world?

Stanley: I try to stir up the awareness of the truth that all of us are equally as responsible for the grave consequence of mass pollution happening across the globe. In China, the issue escalated during the last four decades along with the high speed of economic growth. We try to live life as Americans, but we have 1.4 billion people. China has already replaced the USA as the largest producer of e-waste simply because we are so after the consumerism ideology. All the trash that China fails to recycle will be transferred to a new trash yard, perhaps somewhere in Southeast Asia, Africa or South America. If we continue to fall into the trap of consumerism and blindly indulge in newer, faster, more expensive industrial products, one day we may face trash that is untransferrable, unavoidable, and unrecyclable. By then, we would all become waste people. Technology might be the cure but fundamentally it’s all about the lifestyle, the philosophy and the values we believe in.

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龙马精神* Dragon Horse Vitality Spirit

* This is a common Lunar New Year greeting

Guest editorial by Yen Ooi. Published as part of Vector 293 exploring Chinese SF.

Chinese science fiction’s (CSF) growth in popularity has followed the rapid development trend of China itself. In his interview with fellow writer Maggie Shen King, Chen Qiufan (a.k.a. Stanley Chan) highlights that China has over the last four decades achieved the technological and economic advancements that countries in the West achieved in the last century. The speed of modernisation and urbanisation is a remarkable thing to behold, with 100 million people lifted out of poverty just since 2013. China’s rise has been subject to international scrutiny and criticism, which is to be expected. The most unfounded of which plumbed new depths in the past year — 2020 — through the pandemic. While the previous president of the United States of America (among many) used the term “Chinese virus” in his description of Covid-19, East Asian diaspora communities living in Western countries experienced increased instances of racism. What is the connection?

Genres are in general difficult to define, but CSF is especially complicated. Both the terms Chinese and science fiction defy any clear definition, yet are used so commonly that every user has their own pre-assumed definition. One popular assumption in the West is that CSF should always be read in terms of political dissent or complicity with state power. As much as that might be true for some, it is an unhelpful generalisation. After all, we do not assume that British SF is only about Brexit, or American SF only about Trump. In one sense, all storytelling is inherently political, and within Anglophone SF especially, the racist and queerphobic attack on representational diversity is often disguised as a demand to “remove the politics” from our stories. However, the necessarily political nature of storytelling is complicated in the case of the Anglophone reception of CSF. The insistence of many Western readers on interpreting CSF exclusively in relation to government censorship can itself have a paradoxically censoring effect. Some CSF authors have even resisted writing stories set in China, or allowing the translation of their work into English, for fear that readers will ignore its actual aesthetic and intellectual qualities, while using it as material for simplistic speculation: Whose side are you really on? To quote Ken Liu — for what is a publication on CSF without mentioning the writer who, it feels like, has single-handedly brought CSF to Anglo-American readers? —

Like writers everywhere, today’s Chinese writers are concerned with humanism; with globalization; with technological advancement; with development and environmental preservation; with history, rights, freedom, and justice; with family and love; with the beauty of expressing sentiment through words; with language play; with the grandeur of science; with the thrill of discovery; with the ultimate meaning of life.
Ken Liu, Invisible Planets, 2016.

Chinese means many things: culture, ethnicity, nationality, language, people, food, celebrations, traditions, dance, art, tea, etc. It is impossible to talk about all things related to CSF, but we hope that we’ve managed to introduce some key ideas and concepts in this issue, and that you’ll find areas that particularly excite you — as a writer, researcher, or reader — to want to learn more.

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Chen Qiufan: Why did I Write a Science Fiction Novel about E-waste?

Guangzhao Lyu, Angela Chan and Mia Chen Ma. Published as part of Vector 293 exploring Chinese SF. If you’d like to receive the issue, join the BSFA.

This is a transcription of Chen Qiufan’s public talk at Goodenough College, London, invited by London Chinese Science Fiction Group (LCSFG), on 12th August 2019, which is followed by a conversation with Angela Chan and Mia Chen Ma. This was originally published in Chinese on LCSFG’s WeChat account.^[1]

The London Chinese Science Fiction Group (LCSFG) is a community for people interested in Chinese languages (sinophone) science and speculative fiction. Since it was founded in April 2019, LCSFG has been organising monthly reading groups focusing on short stories available both in Chinese and English and has been inviting established/emerging Chinese SF writers to participate in online discussions following the pandemic lockdown since March 2020. During our meetings, we explore the story’s themes, literary styles and even translation techniques and choices, as a way to better understand the piece, as well as the evolving field of contemporary Chinese SF.

Chen Qiufan:

Firstly, many thanks to the London Chinese Science Fiction Group for inviting me here, and to Goodenough College for providing such a gorgeous place. Today, I would like to talk about my debut novel, and only novel to date, Waste Tide. And don’t worry, there won’t be any spoilers. Before I discuss the story itself, let me give some general background information and my inspiration, that is, why I wanted to write a science fiction novel about China’s near-future in conjunction with e-waste recycling.

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