Book picks similar to
蜜汁炖鱿鱼 (Stewed Squid with Honey) by Mo Bao Fei Bao
romance
chinese-novels
chinese
chinese-novel
Soul Mountain
Gao Xingjian - 1989
But six weeks later, a second examination revealed there was no cancer -- he had won "a reprieve from death." Faced with a repressive cultural environment and the threat of a spell in a prison farm, Gao fled Beijing and began a journey of 15,000 kilometers into the remote mountains and ancient forests of Sichuan in southwest China. The result of this epic voyage of discovery is Soul Mountain.Bold, lyrical, and prodigious, Soul Mountain probes the human soul with an uncommon directness and candor and delights in the freedom of the imagination to expand the notion of the individual self.
Dream of Ding Village
Yan Lianke - 2005
Set in a poor village in Henan province, it is a deeply moving and beautifully written account of a blood-selling ring in contemporary China. Based on a real-life blood-selling scandal in eastern China, Dream of Ding Village is the result of three years of undercover work by Yan Lianke, who worked as an assistant to a well-known Beijing anthropologist in an effort to study a small village decimated by HIV/AIDS as a result of unregulated blood selling. Whole villages were wiped out with no responsibility taken or reparations paid. Dream of Ding Village focuses on one family, destroyed when one son rises to the top of the Party pile as he exploits the situation, while another son is infected and dies. The result is a passionate and steely critique of the rate at which China is developing and what happens to those who get in the way.
The Man with the Compound Eyes
Wu Ming-Yi - 2011
Atile'i is one such boy, but as the strongest swimmer and best sailor, he is determined to defy destiny and become the first to survive.Alice Shih, who has lost her husband and son in a climbing accident, is quietly preparing to commit suicide in her house by the sea. But her plan is interrupted when a vast trash vortex comes crashing onto the shore of Taiwan, bringing Atile'i with it.In the aftermath of the catastrophe, Atile'i and Alice retrace her late husband's footsteps into the mountains, hoping to solve the mystery of her son's disappearance. On their journey, memories will be challenged, an unusual bond formed, and a dark secret uncovered that will force Alice to question everything she thought she knew.
My Underachieving Seatmate Doesn’t Need Any Comforting
龙柒 (Long Qi) - 2019
Dad just ordered a new sports car for you.Granddad: Grandson, there’s no need to hurry. It’s alright even if you didn’t do well in your exam. Granddad bought a new yacht for you, come and take a break.Grandpa: Grandson, don’t cry, it’s okay if you didn’t do well in the exam. Grandpa’s billions-worth of properties are all yours.With a blank expression, He Shen threw his 2.5 Yuan worth bottle of drink into the trash.Hold your horses! Comfort?
Three Kingdoms
Luo Guanzhong
"The empire, long divided, must unite; long united, must divide. Thus it has ever been." With this characterization of the inevitable cycle of Chinese history, the monumental tale Three Kingdoms begins. As important for Chinese culture as the Homeric epics have been for the West, this Ming Dynasty masterpiece continues to be read and loved throughout China as well as in Japan, Korea, and Vietnam. The novel offers a startling and unsparing view of how power is wielded, how diplomacy is conducted, and how wars are planned and fought; it has influenced the ways that Chinese think about power, diplomacy, and war even to this day.Three Kingdoms portrays a fateful moment at the end of the Han Dynasty (206 B.C.-A.D. 220) when the future of the Chinese empire lay in the balance. Writing more than a millennium later, Luo Guanzhong drew on often told tales of this turbulent period to fashion a sophisticated compelling narrative, whose characters display vivid individuality and epic grandeur.The story begins when the emperor, fearing uprisings by peasant rebels known as the Yellow Scarves, sends an urgent appeal to the provinces for popular support. In response, three young men - the aristocratic Liu Xuande, the fugitive Lord Guan, and the pig-butcher Zhang Fei - meet to pledge eternal brotherhood and fealty to their beleaguered government. From these events comes a chain of cause and consequence that leads ultimately to the collapse of the Han.
Wolf Totem
Jiang Rong - 2004
There has been much international excitement too-to date, rights have been sold in thirteen countries. Wolf Totem is set in 1960s China-the time of the Great Leap Forward, on the eve of the Cultural Revolution. Searching for spirituality, Beijing intellectual Chen Zhen travels to the pristine grasslands of Inner Mongolia to live among the nomadic Mongols-a proud, brave, and ancient race of people who coexist in perfect harmony with their unspeakably beautiful but cruel natural surroundings. Their philosophy of maintaining a balance with nature is the ground stone of their religion, a kind of cult of the wolf. The fierce wolves that haunt the steppes of the unforgiving grassland searching for food are locked with the nomads in a profoundly spiritual battle for survival-a life-and-death dance that has gone on between them for thousands of years. The Mongols believe that the wolf is a great and worthy foe that they are divinely instructed to contend with, but also to worship and to learn from. Chen's own encounters with the otherworldly wolves awake a latent primitive instinct in him, and his fascination with them blossoms into obsession, then reverence. After many years, the peace is shattered with the arrival of Chen's kinfolk, Han Chinese, sent from the cities to bring modernity to the grasslands. They immediately launch a campaign to exterminate the wolves, sending the balance that has been maintained with religious dedication for thousands of years into a spiral leading to extinction-first the wolves, then the Mongol culture, finally the land. As a result of the eradication of the wolves, rats become a plague and wild sheep graze until the meadows turn to dust. Mongolian dust storms glide over Beijing, sometimes blocking out the moon. Part period epic, part fable for modern days, Wolf Totem is a stinging social commentary on the dangers of China's overaccelerated economic growth as well as a fascinating immersion into the heart of Chinese culture.
Mr. Tycoon's Daring Wife
Xincerely - 2019
For you, my darling, I would part the mountains, split the sea, and cause havoc on Earth just to have you."- - - -In every love story, there's always a vengeful and venomous fiancée who was engaged to the rich and handsome CEO that fell for the poor, but gentle and innocent female lead. In his greed for her love, he broke his poor fiancée whose love drove her to the brink of insanity.No one ever cared about how the fiancée felt.Zhao Lifei was prepped her entire life to marry one man, but suddenly, his heart was captured by another. She was face-slapped, destroyed, and disowned for loving Zheng Tianyi. She was willing to sacrifice her youth, time, and heart for the man, but all she got was pain and despair.It took two harsh, but awakening years for Zhao Lifei to finally understand the mistakes she has made in the past.After her redemption, it was now Zhao Lifei's turn to experience a love grander than the female lead.Smarter, feistier, and wittier, Zhao Lifei knew how to survive the cruel, backstabbing, and harsh upper-class society was."A bastard fiancé that broke my heart? Screw him, I'll find someone richer!""All of my friends have abandoned me? Whatever, I'll find better ones!""My parents disowned me? That's fine, my grandfather is wealthier and more powerful than both of them combined!"To the polar opposite of the snarky Zhao Lifei, was the incredibly wealthy and powerful, yet ruthlessly cold Yang Feng.Yang Feng, the King of the Business Empire, was a man to be feared. Heart of ice, eyes of stone, merciless but enticingly handsome, there was not a single person in this world that dared to offend him.Many have tried, but none had succeeded in garnering his attention. That is, until his path unexpectedly collides with Zhao Lifei.Challenges will arise, chaos will commence, and drama will ensue. But then again, what is a love story without disturbance? They say love without conflict is just a simple crush and the story of Zhao Lifei and Yang Feng was anything but that.
Last Words from Montmartre
Qiu Miaojin - 1996
Unfolding through a series of letters written by an unnamed narrator, Last Words tells the story of a passionate relationship between two young women—their sexual awakening, their gradual breakup, and the devastating aftermath of their broken love. In a style that veers between extremes, from self-deprecation to pathos, compulsive repetition to rhapsodic musings, reticence to vulnerability, Qiu’s genre-bending novel is at once a psychological thriller, a sublime romance, and the author’s own suicide note.The letters (which, Qiu tells us, can be read in any order) leap between Paris, Taipei, and Tokyo. They display wrenching insights into what it means to live between cultures, languages, and genders—until the genderless character Zoë appears, and the narrator’s spiritual and physical identity is transformed. As powerfully raw and transcendent as Mishima’s Confessions of a Mask, Goethe’s The Sorrows of Young Werther, and Theresa Cha’s Dictée, to name but a few, Last Words from Montmartre proves Qiu Miaojin to be one of the finest experimentalists and modernist Chinese-language writers of our generation.
Counter Attack
柴鸡蛋
I already broke up with him.”“I know.”“You knew? I didn’t know you were still so concerned about me…”“I know because he and I are now a couple.”This is a story about how a poor loser turned into a tall, handsome and rich guy and snatched his ex-girlfriend’s current boyfriend away.
Transmigrating into a Mob Character to Rehabilitate the Villain Plan
杀小丸
In short, this is the tragic tale of a saint-like man who transmigrated into a web novel as a mob character and wanted to rehabilitate the villain, only to realize in the end, he became more and more villainous.The ludicrous story:Unable to bear hurting the villain he helped raise, but when it came to compensating with his own body, the unfortunate, straight male reader figured he’d better escape… …Many years later, the same unfortunate saint rubbed his neck, asking, “This is a dog collar you put on me, isn’t it?”The handsome villainous boss gave a glance with his elegant, almond-shaped eyes, and then replied with a devious, charming smile, “That’s to prevent you from running away again.”“If I stay put, will you refrain from destroying the world?”
The Princess Wei Yang
秦简 (Qin Jian)
Her husband loved her stepsister, deposed her as Empress and even forced her son into death. In that Cold Palace, she was forced to drink poisonous wine. So in the next lifetime, she made a promise to never do good deeds and help others, to never step into the palace and to never become the Empress!At the Prime Minister’s estate, the mistress’ daughter is reborn into a she-devil.An evil stepmother? I will make sure you go to Hell!A two-faced, hypocritical older stepsister? I will rip apart that beautiful façade!A scheming younger stepsister? I will throw you into the grave!You guys didn’t let me live peacefully so you should also expect the same!Initially she wanted to stay away from disaster as far as possible; however, a man’s heart is like a needle in the sea—impossible to search for, impossible to understand.The man who once swore to abandon her became someone who can’t live without her.The enemy from the past lifetime suddenly confesses his feelings for her.Even worse, she is bothered by a handsome man with a thick-skin who doesn’t know how to give up!
Rickshaw Boy
Lao She - 1936
A man of simple needs whose greatest ambition is to one day own his own rickshaw, Xiangzi is nonetheless thwarted, time and again, in his attempts to improve his lot in life.One of the most important and popular works of twentieth-century Chinese literature, Rickshaw Boy is an unflinchingly honest, darkly comic look at a life on the margins of society and a searing indictment of the philosophy of individualism.
Seizing Dreams [夺梦]
Arise Zhang - 2018
He led Yu Hao in solving the countless riddles that abounded in the realm of the conscious, and lit up the fire beacons on the meandering Great Wall.Thereafter, the darkness retreated, the sun rose, and when the long night was thoroughly lit up, the him who existed in reality was reborn.The black dragon that roared, the lighthouse and demonic eye on the coastline, the rain forest before Chichén Itzá, the fierce beasts that wreaked havoc in the Colosseum…the bizarre projection of reality in one’s consciousness reflected the hidden place that the sunlight in reality couldn’t touch – the innumerable sins of the human heart.The journey of seizing dreams continues, and one can only hope that the sun will continue illuminating the human heart.…Fire beacons on the Great Wall were lit up to signal a border invasion.
Invisible Planets: Contemporary Chinese Science Fiction in Translation
Ken Liu - 2016
Some stories have won awards; some have been included in various 'Year's Best' anthologies; some have been well reviewed by critics and readers; and some are simply Ken's personal favorites. Many of the authors collected here (with the obvious exception of Liu Cixin) belong to the younger generation of 'rising stars'.In addition, three essays at the end of the book explore Chinese science fiction. Liu Cixin's essay, The Worst of All Possible Universes and The Best of All Possible Earths, gives a historical overview of SF in China and situates his own rise to prominence as the premier Chinese author within that context. Chen Qiufan's The Torn Generation gives the view of a younger generation of authors trying to come to terms with the tumultuous transformations around them. Finally, Xia Jia, who holds the first Ph.D. issued for the study of Chinese SF, asks What Makes Chinese Science Fiction Chinese?.
你们男生打游戏好厉害哦~ You Boys Play Games Very Well
易修罗 (Yi Xiu Luo) - 2018
Infamous for his poison tongue, he’s known in the forums as Lemon Dad and he carefully cultivates a following of black powder fans over time. The trajectory of his fate completely changes the day he plays a match against the popular god-tier live stream anchor, Mangosteen. A meme created out of his dying words makes him a countrywide laughingstock and he begins to stalk Mangosteen to determine his rival’s weaknesses…to beat him in a match for revenge!They fight with each other, stream with each other, and even exchange a naked photo with each other.This is the love story of a lemon and a mangosteen.