Beijing Adult Entertainment: Lovers in the Age of Indifference
Although the 17 stories feature a variety of characters, the universal protagonist is the city of Beijing. The Chinese capital is the personification of the human predicament. A dusty cannibal, it is intolerant of history, whether personal or cultural, and bent on progress through incessant construction. In it, workers and peasants are marginalised in favour of the middle classes and shiny new things. The city becomes the embodiment of the paradox that is modern China, a communist country with a capitalist system.
Guo portrays the collateral damage inflicted by Beijing’s speedy development: the loss of home, identity, dignity, intimacy and often, humanity. In “Into the World”, a peasant cleaner breezily batters a man with a hammer to retrieve money for his boss. “Beijing’s Slowest Elevator” depicts a village girl who is recognised, and therefore possibly shamed for ever, while entertaining a customer in a karaoke bar/brothel.
See the full article from “Financial Times”