This will be a massive entry for a massive country. It is a long entry, for a country with a long history. And a complex entry, for a complex nation. China – already just as a single word spoken or written it says so much and everyone has an opinion. I have several friends with Chinese backgrounds, and my daughter L (18) successfully studied Mandarin at school for a couple of years, winning a few awards. Through her, I have learned to appreciate the musicality and nuances of Mandarin. A few years ago she participated in a contest in Mandarin and I sat through a five-hour contest immersed in a fascinating language that I did not understand one word of (L proofreading note: I sang a song named Mo Li Hua on a ukulele and won a thermos I still use today, xie xie Wu Lao Shi!)

For this entry, I have sought the help of close friends with Chinese backgrounds who have helped me navigate a rich and complex landscape of food, literature and film (and a bit of history). What a fascinating stop it has been. 

One important note: this stop will not cover Hong Kong. The reason for this is that the Hong Kong movie and literature production is so significant that Hong Kong will be appreciated  as its own entry under Bonus H: Hong Kong – which naturally will come much later in the Virtual Nomad ‘series’. 

But first, as always. Food. 

Four culinary experiences 

When I talk with CH, the Special Advisor to Virtual Nomad (who has been to over 140 countries and counting), she recommends dividing the culinary map of China into four different parts in order to appreciate the variety of the Chinese kitchen. CH advises that we do separate stops for the Tibet, Xinjiang, Sichuan, and Cantonese cuisines. This will also allow us to enjoy small pockets of time with different people as a break from our wonderful big Virtual Nomad nights. 

Food stop one: a Tibetan dinner

Before CH returns to travelling and will be away some months, a day or two before the end of 2024, we travel to Dee Why in Northern Sydney to farewell her and share a Tibetan dinner. Dee Why has the highest concentration of Tibetan people in Australia so it is quite natural to find Tibetan restaurants in the area. Apart from CH and myself, joining us are my partner JK and my children L (then 17) and A (11), and L’s boyfriend NA (18). We are joined by the mother of one of CH’s friends, a lovely Philippine woman living in Germany. The Tibetan Peace Restaurant is situated at the heart of Dee Why, a hidden gem that is easy to miss. The outside of the restaurant is quite modest and the interiors reflect Tibetan heritage with flags, artefacts and of course a picture of the Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama. 

Tibet is the highest region in the world and half of the mighty Mount Everest is found in Tibet, with the other half in Nepal. It has existed as a distinctive region since the emerging of the Tibetan Empire in the 7^th century that grew to its peak in the 9^th century. However, in ‘Tibet’ and China, the land is not called Tibet (as in all Western languages) but either by the local names Bod (referring to the lands around the capital Lhasa, the ‘Greater Tibet’) or Ü-Tsang (referring to central Tibet). There are several words in Chinese that refer to regions, including Tubo (referring to the Tibet Empire), but the Chinese government prefers the name Xizang that is the name of the Tibet Autonomous Region. The English name Tibet comes from Latin Tibetum, but there are much older names that were in use to refer to the region, including Tebet in the 13^th century. 

The history of Tibet is long and complex. The glorious Buddhist Empire was born in the 7^th century and raised to its full power in the 9^th century. Dzungar Mongols invaded Tibet in 1240. They were expelled in 1720 by the Qing Dynasty. The Qing Dynasty annexed Tibet to its empire but Tibet could retain a large portion of its own governance (when the Dge-lugs-pa, also known as the Yellow Hat Sect gained power) with the Dalai Lama holding the spiritual leadership. Eventually the influence of the Qing Dynasty grew larger. In 1913, the Dalai Lama declared Tibet independent without the recognition of the outside world. Following the 1948 Cultural Revolution in China, Tibet was invaded in 1950 and established as an Autonomous Region in 1965. In the 1950s, a large number of Tibetans fled into exile, including the 14^th Dalai Lama. He currently lives in India and the population in Tibet is not allowed to refer to him as their spiritual leader. Many Tibetan Buddhist temples were destroyed during the Cultural Revolution and thousands of Tibetans are believed to have been killed during and after that time.  

But now to the food itself. We ordered several authentic and traditional Tibetan/Bod foods. An essential feature of the Tibetan dinner was of course the national food, Momos – which are filled dumplings. We ordered both beef (bottom on the left) and spinach and cheese (on the right). Momos are believed to have originated in Tibet and then spread into neighbouring countries including Nepal, Bhutan and India, but they are also quite common in the Bangladeshi kitchen. This said, traditional Tibetan momos are quite different from the ones in Nepal, with a thicker dough and almost no spices. The etymology of the word ‘momo’ seems to refer to ‘mo’ which means flour or steamed buns. The momos that we ate were lovely when eaten hot, but although they were filling, they did not end up having a very elaborate taste. 

Tibetan cuisine is adjusted to the demanding climate of high plateaus and mountains which means that animal protein, especially goat, yak and beef (when available), is typical and there are less fresh vegetables and herbs. Therefore the cuisine is rich in meat, grains and dairy. We ordered a funnily named Call Beef Salad (on the left) as it carried no salad. Apparently the spicy beef salad is a very popular dish in Tibet, served cold. The secret of a successful call beef salad is cooling the meat so that it can be sliced better. The other dish, well received Shapta (stir-fry) or pork and vegetables is another typical dish of the Tibetan diet. Shapta can also be made with chicken, beef, mutton or buff. 

As a vegetarian, I was very grateful for the Thenthuk, Tibetan homemade noodles in broth. Meat and dairy are typical especially of the Amdo region in Northeastern Tibet. Traditionally Thenthuk has mutton or yak meat, but we order ours without meat which is a modern version. The traditional noodle soup is heavier as its purpose was to keep people warm during winter months. 

We accompany the food with tigmo, Tibetan bread (top) and chicken curry (on the right). The bread is not overly tasty but it is a good accompaniment to the more juicy dishes.  

Food stop 2: a rainy night with food from Xinjiang 

Xinjiang is the largest of Chinese provinces, located in northwestern China, on the Silk Road. It is an autonomous region of China, with a high mountain range. Xinjiang came under the Qing Dynasty in the 1700s, and, since 1949, is part of the People’s Republic of China. In 1955, the status of Xinjiang was changed from province to autonomous region. Abundant with mineral sources and home to 25 million people, who mostly speak Uyghur as their first language, Xinjiang also has a distinctive cuisine. It is estimated that around half (12 million) of the province’s population is Uyghur. The Human Rights situation in Xingjiang is not great – the Chinese government has being accused of genocide against the Uyghurs and other Muslim-ethnicities in China with recent documentation of more than a million people being held in ‘re-education camps’ or jails, and there are reports of mass sterilisations that are resulting in population decrease of the Muslim minority. 

But now to food. 

On a rainy summer night in January, we head to the Xinjiang Handmade Noodle Restaurant in Chatswood, northern Sydney. The restaurant is said to serve authentic Chinese noodles, soups and dim sum in the Xinjiang style. We take along my fantastic neighbours of many years, LG and PH for their first Virtual Nomad experience.

CH has recommended this restaurant and it is easy to understand why. The location and decoration is quite humble – the restaurant is on the second floor with steep stairs so it is quite easy to miss if you do not know what you are looking for. As we are there on a very rainy and stormy night, the restaurant is quite empty, but the quality of food is outstanding. The noodles are handmade and lack the artificial taste of fast(er) food. We get wontons in spicy and sour sauce – the Xinjiang wontons are often made by hand-pulling wheat dough into strands that are long and thin. The flour used is usually bread flour which is stronger and sturdier than ordinary wheat flour. We have wontons in the spicy and sour sauce, and also vegetarian wontons that are very yummy and filling. 

Noodles have a long history in Xinjiang and other parts of China. For example in 2005, in the Lajia archaeological site, a sealed bowl was found containing almost perfectly preserved yellow noodles from 4000 years ago. The noodle dishes we order are Fried noodles with chicken and flavour noodles. All the food we order tastes like it is MSG free (or at least reduced). 

While all the food is delicious, being homemade, the real star of the dinner is the Braised Eggplants with garlic and chilli (on the right). It is absolutely stellar: juicy and delicious. Braised tofu with Special Sauce (on the left) is also very good. 
Tradition and culture are important in Xinjiang, particularly  for the Uyghur population. In 2017, an acclaimed Uyghur ethnographer Rahile Dawut (founder of the Uyghur folklore Institute of the University of Xinjiang) disappeared. In 2023, it was discovered that she was in the hands of Chinese authorities. She was sentenced to life in prison for “endangering state security” for her work in preserving and defending Uyghur cultural identity and heritage.

Food stop 3: Sichuan hotpot in Chinatown 

Sichuan is a province in Southwestern China bordering Tibet and home to the longest river in Asia, the Yangtze. The provincial capital of Sichuan is Chengdu and the majority of China’s giant panda population can be found in Sichuan (and also in the provinces of Shaanxi and Gansu).  The Sichuan cuisine is famous for spiciness and use of both chili peppers and the Sichuan peppercorn. For Sichuan hot pot, we decide to head to Chinatown in Sydney CBD and opt for Jiu Long Ding Chongqing Hot Pot. Excellent choice – the restaurant is packed and the air is full of spicy flavour that hits you in the face when you walk in. The service is friendly and helpful, and every single table is full (L proofreading note: It was also very close to Lunar New Year when we visited, so that may account for the sheer number of tables joyfully celebrating around us!). We are seated at a round table with a hot pot stove in the middle, and we feel that the number of people in our party is the maximum to fully enjoy the experience. 

Now to the food. This one was a huge hit among the participating twelve Virtual Nomads. It was a great night with excellent food, wonderful experience and lively company. Another highlight on the Virtual Nomad path. 

Sichuan Hotpot is a communal meal originating from the early 1800s in Sichuan near the Yangtze River. As fishermen, port workers and other working-class people could not afford regular meat and needed something to keep them warm during cold winter months, they used spicy broth to cook meat and vegetables. In order to share resources, the meal evolved into a communal dish reuniting people around the table. The method is to have a spicy broth and poach raw ingredients into the broth. These ingredients usually include different types of meat, vegetables, noodles, Sichuan peppercorns and sometimes seafood. Over time, the dish evolved from more basic ingredients to richer taste selection. Luckily in our Virtual Nomad group today we not only have four newbies (a wonderful family that already helped me with the Austria entry but also the father RA is familiar with the Sichuan kitchen) but we also have my awesome friend L* who ends up being the one to know and organise all, and we leave it in her very capable hands. L* suggested that we order two types of broth – one spicy meat-based broth and one mild mushroom broth. A great suggestion that ended up serving the whole group. The photo tells clearly which one is which ☺. 

While the hot pot includes all these different ingredients, the food is usually eaten with a dipping sauce. We all get up and line up to create our individual dips. The options include anything from very spicy ones (different types of chilli) to milder ones. Usually the sauces are made of sesame oil and garlic. Most of us follow L*’s advice and use sesame sauce as our base. In the photo is my option – sesame sauce, garlic, coriander and a tiny bit of chilli. Amazing!

Hot Pot is said to be very good for body circulation, and it is a wonderful shared experience. Our ingredients included meat, vegetables, tofu, mushrooms, noodles, fungi and lotus root. Twelve around the round table seems to be the recommended maximum as more people would have made the experience more stressful. The recommended size would probably be smaller which would then allow more time for conversation. Nevertheless, this was one of the Virtual Nomad highlights for many of the participants and especially my daughter L (then 17) and her boyfriend NA (18) enjoyed it so much that they returned the following week with my friend L*’s daughter S* (who was also present during our dinner) and a friend. 

Food stop 4: Cantonese yum cha

Our last food stop for China is the Cantonese kitchen. The Chinese food stop would not have been complete without one of its most famous parts, the Cantonese Yum Cha. Yum Cha is usually a type of meal that needs no introduction. My beautiful friend L* knows a good Yum Cha place in Chatswood (North Sydney), Dim Joy House. It is situated on top of an RSL club (meaning Returned and Services League of Australia – that you need to sign in for with your ID) so slightly inconvenient but still a great find. We find rude and unfriendly serving staff but good food. It is a lovely experience, but probably our least favourite of the four Chinese food stops. It still is really good value for anyone in the area and an average of $40AUD for our party of seven. The restaurant was packed to capacity for lunch which showed that people were there for food and not for service. 

Yum cha means “drink tea” in Cantonese. The traditional Yum Cha basically means drinking Chinese tea, and eating small dishes (dim sum). It is an essential part of Cantonese cuisine and usually a shared experience. The most common dim sum are probably different dumplings (pork, prawn, etc) and steamed barbecue pork buns. The tea is the centrepiece of Yum Cha, and it is usually jasmine (as it was in our case) or green tea. The tea cups are also typically small, and the teapot is refilled constantly. The Cantonese regions in China are mainly the Provinces of Guangdong and Guangxi, but also Hong Kong and Macau. 

We went for everything, from delicious tea to lightly battered eggplant, noodles, several vegetarian dishes, dumplings and meat dishes.  

And that concludes our delicious and long food stop in China!

From Thirteen Dynasties to Cultural Revolution, Tiananmen Protest and modernity 

China is the second most populated country in the world (behind India) with a long history. The early history of China is a tale of thirteen dynasties, starting from pre-imperial China and the rise of the debated Xia Dynasty – which could just be a tale or a legend. There are no early accounts or physical evidence of the Xia Dynasty that has been said to have existed during the Erlitou period. The first confirmed dynasty is the Shang Dynasty (1600 – 1046 BCE) who were skilled in using bronze, and their belief system was based on the deity Shang Di. They were also very cruel which resulted in some of their slaves and soldiers to join the enemy camp. Then followed the Zhou Dynasty, ruling for almost 800 years (1046 to 256 BCE) and divided into two periods. Their rule established the feudal system but also introduced some of the most philosophical foundations such as Confucius, Daoism and Legalism, along with the writing system.

The Zhou Dynasty was followed by the Qin Dynasty that was victorious after the Warring States period (576 – 221 BCE). The Qin Dynasty was short-lived (221 – 206 BCE) but still a highly influential rule; planning a wall against enemies, and regarded as a period of suppression of the freedom of speech, burning books and persecution of scholars and philosophers. So, the megalomaniac emperor built a wall, burned books, went after ideals of social harmony, and against the idea that you should lead by example and virtue rather than force. Sounds familiar, eh? The emperor was so afraid of death that when he finally died, he had thousands of terracotta soldiers guard his tomb. 

Then it was the turn of the Han Dynasty (206 BCE – 220 AD), the golden age of prosperity and peace, and the Silk Road, literature and poetry, Confuciusm, people selected for roles based on merit and the invention of paper. But power corrupts, and then more people wanted power, so the country was split in three parts during the Three Kingdoms Period (220-265) when around 40 million people died, and the fighting and destruction continued until the country was united under the Sui Dynasty (581-618), followed by the famous Tang Dynasty (618 -906), the cultural Golden Age of Chinese culture and that saw the only female emperor in the country’s history, Wu Zetian. Another time of chaos followed during the Ten Kingdoms period (907-960) that was followed by the Song Dynasty (960-1279) of many inventions (gun power, paper money, printing, the compass..). They fell against the Mongols who established the Yuan Dynasty (1279-1368) with the new capital Xanadu. That was followed by the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) that returned the Chinese rule that finished the Great Wall of China and the Forbidden City. They were followed by the last Dynasty, the Qing, mainly composed of Manchus (from Manchuria). It was the 5^th largest empire in world history, the last emperor of China being a 6-year-old Puyi who after the Xinhai Rebellion in 1911, abdicated in 1912.

The Republic of China was formed in 1912 but times were unstable and the Chinese Civil War 1927-37 was a devastating ideological conflict. The Japanese invaded China in 1937 but were defeated in the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937-45) – the Japanese invasion caused around twenty million deaths and several atrocities were committed, one of the most famous being the Rape/Massacre of Nanking. After defeating the Japanese, the Chinese went back to fighting each other in the second part of the Civil War, and in 1949 the Communists gained the control of China while the other party, the Nationalists retreated to Taiwan. Mao Zedong declared the country as the People’s Republic of China in 1949. His flagship project, the intended industrialisation the Great Leap Forward, resulted in 30-50 million deaths. His other disastrous project was the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) persecution and suppression of human rights disguised in feverous nationalism and repression. After his death, economic and social reforms were launched by the new leader Deng Xiaoping and his buddies, and policies such as China’s one-child policy (1979-2015) were established. Ai WeiWei whose biography (see below in the ‘books section’) I read for this stop, says in his book:” By the early 1980s, young people in China who had been sent to the countryside during the Cultural Revolution had returned to the cities, and with rising unemployment, the social fabric was under a lot of strain. Deng Xiaoping, China’s new paramount leader; downplayed the rights of the individual, defining humanitarianism as “protection of the majority of people’s security.” The government launched a crackdown on crime that meted out swift and severe punishments, and between 1983 and 1987 no fewer than 1.7 million people received criminal sentences.” These punishments did not correlate with the severeness of the crime with people getting sentences for example for sexual promiscuity. 

The 1989 Tiananmen Square student protest was brutally suppressed. While there is no official death toll, it is estimated to be several thousands. After 1989, the economy grew to be the second biggest in the world but also corruption, unemployment and financial inequality increased. The current Chinese government has been accused of human rights abuses, including the persecution of religious and ethnic minorities.

Six books from China

Everything in China is massive. The landmass is massive, the population is second only to India, cultural traditions are numerous, and the large and dense literary scene follows these trends. How does one choose, among all the books available, the very right ones? I have seen quite a lot of Chinese cinema in my life, but I have read less, with my experience being more classic Chinese literature. Therefore, I am so ready for the feast of Chinese literature, and again I am guided by advice from friends. From the massive list of recommendations, I choose those that have been mentioned most. And as I read six books from a massive Canada, I will read six books from a massive China (with the exclusion of Hong Kong that will have its separate entry later in the Virtual Nomad series). 

Let’s start with the popular choice. 

I cannot wait to get my hands into The Three-Body Problem (2006), a massive success by a celebrated Chinese Science Fiction author Cixin Liu, also adapted into a tv series by Netflix (that I could not care to watch after the first 30 minutes). Just on GoodReads the book has over 100,000 reviews and most of them are glowing. I am not the only one who wants to read it; my daughter L (18) also does (and it is her book) but so does one of my closest friends and a fellow Virtual Nomad KD who has a PhD in Physics (she also has an important professional role in the field). Therefore, our experiment is that we all read and review it with our varied degrees of understanding of the science in it. We start with the one who understands it least and that is me. 

My review: I very much did not love it. I found it Boring with a capital B, and with a ridiculous plot, paper thin characters and I could not wait for the book to finish. It took me a long time to finish its 434 pages because it does not deliver for me and I felt disengaged almost the entire time. It is a book for me that starts super interesting (during the times of Chinese Cultural Revolution) and then stumbles into a ridiculous mess. It could be that the translation was bad, but I cannot fully blame the poor translator for the absolutely ridiculous dialogues, insufficiently drafted characters and poor storytelling. The science is impressive and partly interesting but even then, it just does not fly. The most interesting part: the personal story of the author that comes after the actual book. I give it two stars out of five. 

L’s review: Okay. So, my favourite book probably ever is a hard but digestible sci-fi: Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir. I also love writing science fiction in my free time, as I find it a sub-genre of fantasy that is simply, just explained better. The setting and plot of Cixin Liu’s novel is exactly this: a fantasy involving aliens, reality, unsolvable theoretical problems and the importance of discovery to protect humanity – explained and justified with vibrant and relevant physics. I have a close friend who liked this book for exactly that: brilliant worldbuilding. However, my issue, namely, is the characterisation; as much as the plot points landed, somewhat haphazardly especially in the middle as timelines jumped around, I could not believe any of the characters. Some have families mentioned once, witness/cause deaths of people around them, face deep betrayals and historically groundbreaking moments, but seem to feel nothing, and experience no substantial, believable consequence. 

Three out of five stars! It took effort to pick the book up when I care so much about characters, but for people who do not need to connect as much to fictional people, I would recommend picking up this first novel for the interesting plot point progressions. I have heard the second book is better, so I may read that one when I get a chance!

KD review: I was a bit hesitant at first when my friend asked me to read the three body problem book because I had just watched the whole tv series. I enjoyed the series and thought that I would not be able to enjoy the book as much as I knew the storyline. But boy, was I wrong! As I started reading, I decided to try to forget the series and rediscover the characters and events. Although it’s obviously impossible to avoid knowing the main plot I did find the book way more authentic and thought provoking than the series. It is brilliant in connecting science and philosophical ideas without giving obvious answers. Unlike the tv series the book does not provide easy character explanations but leaves this open for the reader, which I found an interesting approach. It was also refreshing to read sci-fi from a different cultural background – it adds a dimension of surprise which is enjoyable. I highly recommend it – although I suspect for a non-scientist the physics content may feel jarring. I am now reading the 2nd book on the series and can’t wait to see how it unfolds. 

“Mr T said I was a “problem child” that I spoke when I shouldn’t and was silent when I should speak”.  My next book is A private life (1996) by Ran Chen. Very different from the science fiction hit. It has been marketed as a ‘sexual awakening of a young woman’, but I read it more as a young woman growing up in the shadow of a verbally and emotionally abusive father, sexually groomed and abused by adults before and after the age of consent and falling deeply into a crevasse of loneliness and mental illness. This said, I thought it was an interesting book and describes changes that China was going through in the 70s and 80s, and into the 90s – even touching upon the events of the Tiananmen Square. The narrator describes the change of the educational system to grade-based competition and how that broke down the collective spirit and brought to the school scene cold competitive individualism. There is of course a lot of stuff about the “sexual awakening” but much of it is quite disturbing. The first sexual encounter(s) are clearly rapes which seems not be understood in the text as such. Towards the half-way point, the book slightly changes its tide as the young woman’s perception of reality and her deepening mental state worsens. When I find out more about Chen, I learn that when published, this book caused a stir in China as she admitted writing from experience. In the end, it is a heartbreaking tale on lonelin loneliness, disconnection and alienation with outstanding writing. 

I saw the movie Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress (2002) years ago and loved it but I had not read the book it is based on so that is my next Chinese book. The book was originally published in French in 2000 and subsequently translated into English in 2001 becoming an instant international hit. The author, Dai Sijie, is son of two professors of Medical Science and was sent to be ‘re-educated’ to the countryside in 1971-74, and then moved permanently to France in 1984. This book is loosely based on his experience. 

It is a lovely little book. It does impress me less than the movie did all those years ago (and I am now set to rewatch it) but it is still quaint. It might not fully reach the ambitious goal that it sets to itself – to underline the importance of art, culture and literature in times of repression – but it surely tries. In the story, two young men sent to be re-educated in a remote mountain village come in contact with the most beautiful girl in the mountains (why is that always the main attribute of the object of desire!), a smart but ‘uneducated’ Little Seamstress. She is the object of their affection and catalyst to the desire to read foreign, prohibited literature. 

Ai Weiwei is one of the most famous contemporary artists and a vocal critic of the Chinese government. Ai Weiwei is an outspoken human rights activist and a defender of the freedoms of speech and artistic expression. His father was Ai Qing who was an important poet in China, a personal friend of Mao in the early days and then condemned as a ‘rightist’ and sent to hard labour in northwest China (Heilongjiang and Xinjiang) where Weiwei himself grew up. 1000 Years of Joys and Sorrows (2021) is the autobiography of Weiwei but also a story of his father’s life and the story of the recent history of China. He covers his father’s life story (but his mother does not receive the same treatment, and his mother is left a bit anecdotal in the story, as are other women in his life, including a wife and his son’s mother), his growing up in very harsh conditions, ten years in the US, return to China and his arrest. It is hard not to be self-serving when it comes to autobiographies and Weiwei has been accused of using his art for self-benefitting purposes. He is not the most exciting writer and while it would be great to give 4 stars for the subject matter, it is 3 stars for the book itself. When Weiwei writes about his father, it is quite interesting and then when he writes about his own life, it is not colourful or intriguing, it is just a description of facts, sort of “ this happened, and then this”. People in his life do not get much space (like his mother, his partners etc) and some of the art projects are quite bizarre, such as taking 1001 Chinese to Germany, not sure what the meaning or learning of all that was. But what is important and interesting is his description of the government repression and his fight for civil rights in China. I am not sure if I warmed up to him as a person but I salute his human rights work. 

Two Chinese authors have won the Nobel Prize for Literature, Gao Xingjian in 2000 and Mo Yan in 2012. Mo Yan won his prize for his “hallucinatory realism which merges folk tales, history and the contemporary.” Red Sorghum (1986) is considered his most important work, and the main reason for the Nobel Prize. Now, this is not a feel-good book, and it is definitely not an enjoyable book. Described as a book that spans three generations, it focuses mainly on the grandparents and father of the narrator, living in the Chinese countryside during the Japanese invasion (1937-1945) coinciding with the Chinese Civil War (1927-1950). The life in the village already before the Japanese is a dog-eat-dog world where violent deaths are the norm and women (with bounded feet) are open prey, which magnifies and intensifies when the Japanese arrive. Pages and pages of grotesque, graphic horror and violence. Hundreds of former house dogs feasting on massacred villagers too many to be buried. Mutilations, executions, gang rapes, kidnappings, murder, extortion, child death, you name it. Characters have mostly no other depth other than existing in their animal instincts. Betrayal is common and loyalty is fable. Even love is described to have three stages – fanaticism, cruelty and frigidity. Only a deeply scarred and traumatised person would write a book like this, which Yan probably is. There is an excellent movie based on the first two parts of the book directed by Zhang Yimou which I have seen quite a few years ago. [proofreading note from L: Interestingly, Mo Yan is the author’s pen name! It translates to ‘don’t speak’, and his given name is Guan Moye in English phonetics. I can also confirm a sad and troubled past in the author’s own words, as being hated by both his entire village and own family, on the Nobel Prize in Literature website.]

My last book of the very long China stop is Wild Swans by Jung Chang (1991). A very famous book of three generations of women (grandmother, mother and daughter) within the backdrop of Chinese 20th century history. It is a widely popular book selling over 13 million copies with translations into more than 40 languages. It is a very dense book and it takes me a long time to read it. Many people around me who have read it are enthusiastic and rave about it, and with good reason. It is an incredibly detailed account of the life of three women,  their family of privilege and their fall from grace due to political persecution. It is a story of the social and political chaos of Chinese society during the transition between feudal dynasty-China and repression in the Communist China, and everything in between. “For many people joining the communist party was like taking an insurance policy”, Jung says in one part, an insurance policy indeed in a dog-eat-dog system in which ignorance is praised and cruelty is crucial. It is a monumental book which is an important read, especially in the times that we are living in, in which totalitarianism seems to be on the rise. But it also could have been a great opportunity for accountability and remorse, which is lacking in the book. Jung presents herself and her people as morally superior to everyone, and it is hard to believe that a family with such privilege and connections would have never crossed the line of moral ambiguity and self-interest. Nevertheless, it is an impressive, detailed and dense read.   

The Chinese Film Festival 

China has a massive movie industry so choosing a list of ten films to watch is quite a feat even with the exclusion of Hong Kong. It is true, In the Mood for Love is one of the best films ever made but this Chinese Film Festival will focus on mainland China, and Hong Kong is saved for a later entry in the Virtual Nomad series (Bonus H: Hong Kong) as is Taiwan (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon). 

Part from these two movies that seem to be on every list, everyone with some knowledge on Chinese cinema, has a different favourite movie. I have seen some of the movies that are frequently mentioned but the films chosen for this stop are those that are most cherished, primarily by friends and secondly by film critics / movie goers / film lovers. I have tried to keep the list manageable but due to the massive amount of movie production and the Chinese cinema being so fascinating and ever-changing, in the end the list ends up with twenty (!) movies (but there could have been so many others). As the Chinese movie industry can be divided into different categories, this Chinese Film Festival focuses on movies from the 90s to more recent. Therefore the Virtual Nomad Mainland China Movie Festival is divided into: 1. Fifth Generation directors (circa 1990s), 2. Sixth Generation directors (circa 2000s), 3. the 2010s and 4. Others. 

Let the Chinese Film Festival begin.  

1. Fifth Generation movies

Some of the most famous Mainland China movies are in this category. One of the first films to have launched the start of the so called fifth generation movies was the 1984 movie Yellow Earth by Chen Kaige – it also gained substantive international interest. Dominated by the 1982 graduates from the Beijing Film School, the fifth generation directors broke the fold from the post-Cultural Revolution directors with generous production and use of colour. This marked the difference from the ‘fourth generation directors’ who had lived through the Cultural Revolution and been deeply affected by it. The fourth generation directors had been encouraged to make ‘scar movies’ regarding the horrors of the Cultural Revolution whilst the fifth generation directors usually chose less controversial themes. The most famous directors of this category are Chen Kaige and Zhang Yimou. Many of the films of this era feature the luminous Gong Li, the most famous Chinese actress of the era.  

Movies from the fifth generation directors often occupy the top spots of ‘best of’ lists. The Shanghai Time Out in 2014 consulted 88 film makers and film critics to combine the 100 best Mainland Chinese movies. The top spot on that list belongs to a 1993 movie Farewell my concubine (1993) by Chen Kaige, co-winner of the Palme d’Or in Cannes (first Chinese movie to do that in Cannes). I have seen this movie but it is so long ago that I decide to watch it again. It is a landmark movie; it’s lavish, luscious and extravagant. It covers the story of two childhood friends who become stars in the Peking Opera and the movie tells their story mirroring over 50 years of Chinese history. It is a long and skilful film of loyalty and betrayal, jealousy and sacrifice. The original version saw 14 minutes cut by the Chinese authorities (especially related to the clear homosexual nature of one of the characters). It feels a bit long but it is still quite captivating, and it is understandable why it has become such an icon in the Chinese movie history. 

The other leading directors of the Fifth Generation is Zhang Yimou (who was also the director of the opening and closing ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics in 2008). His private life has attracted a lot of interest from his feud with his long-time producer to his almost a decade long affair with his muse Gong Li and later his marriage to a much younger wife that produced three children under China’s one child policy. 

One of Yimou’s earlier works is what has been called a landmark movie in the 5^th Generation Chinese cinematography, the 1991 movie Raise the Red Lantern. It won several international awards and gained widespread international acclaim. It is set in the 1920s and reflects the tight place of a woman in the Chinese society of the time. The main character, a 19-year old Songlian attends university but after her father’s death, her stepmother sends Songlian as a bride to a rich businessman who already has three other wives. All the wives live in separate buildings and compete and scheme to have the privileges that come from being favourite by the Man (their husband). 

It is a masterful movie about women trapped like animals in a dog-eat-dog world isolated from the outside world and victims of a patriarchal system in which rich and powerful males dictate their destiny. The movie never shows the face of the dominating patriarch and the women do what they must to survive in a situation of no friends and only enemies. It has been labelled to be a ‘romance movie’ but it is not such but suspense at its best. With its gorgeous outstanding cinematography, top notch acting (an amazing Gong Li) and powerful story, it really is a masterpiece.  

Visually stunning, House of Flying Daggers (2004), time-wise is part of the Sixth Generation director era but in production, direction and storytelling belongs to the Fifth Generation movies. It is the Mainland China’s respond to the success of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000). While with a much weaker story it does show again that director Zhang Yimou is a visual master. 

Now to the movie. The colours are stunning and vibrant, and the cinematography is outstanding. The two lead actors, both impossibly beautiful, Zhang Ziyi (also in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) and Takeshi Kaneshiro (who has stated his annoyance that his looks overshadow his talent and who has lived a reclusive life since 2017) do a fairly good job in a movie with a weak and predictable plot. This said, it is wonderful to see that in wuxia martial arts films like this a woman has a central and strong role. But the movie is stunning, the fight and dance scenes amazingly choreographed and the Ukrainian landscape (where the movie was filmed) gorgeous. It is worth to see just for the visuals (and the aesthetically pleasing leads) but not for the story itself. It is dedicated to Anita Mui who was meant to have a role in the film it but succumbed to ovarian cancer when the film had begun. Due to respect for her, the role was not included in the final version of the film. 

Under the Hawthorn Tree (2010) is another of Yimou’s movies, this time situated in the era of the Cultural Revolution. It is based on the book by Ai Mi which in turn is based on real events. Basically it is a love story during the Cultural Revolution when young people are sent to the countryside to be re-educated and they cannot marry before the age of 25. It is a lovely movie even if the age gap between the leads is slightly disturbing and the connection the couple feels is instant but I guess that is just how love is. Nevertheless, it is never explained why the adult Sun falls in love with Jing who all the time looks like a shy scared child and much younger of her years. She is a pure and virginal schoolgirl (16) and he is a geologist researcher. This puzzled me during the movie which overall I found a bit boring. After a masterpiece that is Raise the Red Lantern, this one feels like a filler piece for a talent that Yimou is. 

Time to watch another famous wuxia martial arts movie, another from Yimou. Hero (2002) gained widespread popularity in China and overseas, and was nominated for several international awards. It is aesthetically and visually a stunning movie – it is so beautifully shot that it is like a painting. Different parts of the film are filmed in different colours and the photography is just stunning. I was less engaged with the plot itself and a bit uncomfortable with the message of tyranny being the path to unification, but in absolute in awe with the beauty of it. There are long fight scenes that true to the wuxia tradition challenge gravity and look more like ballet than violence. People are beautiful and very serious – not much smiling in this movie. It is situated in the time of the Warring States period (576 – 221 BCE) and the plot to assassinate the ruler of the Qin Dynasty – the Dynasty that ended up beating all the rest of the warring states and unify China. 

2. Sixth generation directors 

The sixth generation movies mark a clear difference from the fifth generation. These directors from the post-Tiananmen China were more prone to portray a realistic, anti-romantic urban China. The films were mainly done without state funding with cheap equipment and often with hand-held cameras and non-professionals actors. The difference between them and the fifth generation directors is that while the fifth generationals have been broadly embraced by mainstream China, the sixth generation directors have struggled with censorship and lack of funding. One of the first independently produced sixth generation films was the famous film about the Beijing punk culture, Beijing Bastards (1993) by Zhang Yuan. Other famous 6^th generation directors are Jia Zhangke (I watched his film Still Life, 2006, for this movie stop, and was also considering watching another highly regarded film Ash is Purest White 2018),  Lou Ye (I watched his film Suzhou River, 2000), Wang Xiaoshuai (I watched Beijing Bicycle, 2001 and the masterful So Long, My Son, 2019 from him), among others. 

Beijing Bastards is interesting for being one of the pioneers of the Sixth Generation movies. The Chinese authorities were not happy with Yuan’s depiction of Chinese youth and he was banned from filmmaking in 1994 for two years. The director Yuan is also famous for directing the first Chinese movie about homosexuality, the 1996 East Palace, West Palace after which he moved to film more convention films. Beijing Bastards is interesting as a depiction of a certain subculture and the youth landscape of the time nothing like seen from China. It is meant as a “free-form portrait of rock-generation kids in the city” – there is a louse plot of a guy looking for a girl that left him but above all it is about music and the cultural sub scene of young people of the time finding an outlet for their angst much like everywhere else. 

The Three Gorges Dam is the largest power station in the world, constructed in 2006 but becoming fully operational in 2012. An estimated 1.4 million people had to be relocated from the area. Still Life (2006) is a prime example of a sixth generation movie and situated in the times of the construction of the Dam and in the Fengjie County which is within the affected area. The director Jia Zhangke is regarded to be a core member of the Sixth Generation director group. His early films were made without state support but once his international reputation grew, his relationship with the authorities became better. Still Life is a highly acclaimed and awarded (Golden Lion of the Venice Film Festival) digital film that depicts the arrival of two (not connected) people into the town in search for their spouses. It is a slow movie with quite strong background noise. It is an interesting movie, clearly influenced by Italian neorealism and with a notable objective of portraying people at the bottom of the food chain and living in an austere reality. I was not really engaged in the stories of these two people and found myself checking the watch more than often than not but what I did find remarkable is its documenting of the demolition of the dying city making way to the dam waters. 

Suzhou River (2000) is another film in the film noir category of ‘men obsessed with a beautiful enigmatic girl’ and in which the girl is very pretty but given no real personality. The director Lou Ye has opted to film with an at times nauseating hand held camera and a voiceover that carries the story. In the story, the gorgeous actress Zhou Xun (who also appears in three other films that I/we watched for this stop), plays two different characters: an enigmatic woman with cartoon-thin personality who works as a ‘mermaid’ in a tank in an underground bar and a 16-year old Lolita figure who is the object of passion of one of the men in the story (and who in one scene plays with a doll with her hair in pigtails). Zhou Xun is shown several times in her underwear and the motives of both of her characters in ‘falling in love’ with the men that stalk them are never explained. It is clichéd and shallow with cinematography that resembles a music video. There is only one other movie that I disliked more for this Chinese cinematographic stop and that’s the other adolescent male fantasy movie Long Day’s Journey Into Night). The interesting part of this movie is the landscape, the grim, industrial surroundings of the Suzhou River in Shanghai. 

Beijing Bicycle (2001) won its two leads Cui Lin and Li Bin the New Talent Award and for the film the Silver bear of the Berlin Film Festival in 2001. The director of the movie, Wang Xiaoshuai, is part of a loose group of the “Sixth Generation Chinese directors”. 

But, about this movie. It is a movie about a bicycle that becomes not only a symbol of the class differences, also a symbol of status and pride. The main characters are two boys; one a recent immigrant to the city and one a son of a city family investing in their children’s education (more than on bikes). One boy needs the bike for his work and when the bike is stolen and sold to the other, complexities of ownership and class. There is also a subplot, not related to the main story, of the immigrant boy and his father observing/lusting after a rich young woman who likes to walk around the neighbourhood in high heels. She is played by Zhou Xun (the actress from Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress and Shizhou River). It is an interesting movie, mainly for its landscape and description of class differences and less because of its melodramatic, predictable storyline in which women are one-dimensional objects of lust. While it is interesting movie, this is not the film to watch from the director Xiaoshuai. The one to watch is his masterful So Long My Son (see below the category 2010s)

2010s and beyond 

Hu Bo was a Chinese novelist and director from Jinan in the province of Shandong. He wrote three novels including Huge Crack (2017) that is the base of his only feature film, a nearly 4-hour long An Elephant Sitting Still (2018). After finishing the movie, he committed suicide and there are speculations that his death was related to the disagreements regarding the length of the movie. The movie opened to rave reviews and has been considered as one of the most important modern Chinese movies depicting a grim and depressing reality of urban China. 

Set in the industrial north (the Province of Hebei), it is a grim and dark movie of a hopeless world and disconnected people. People are isolated and victims of a lightless life. Emotions are few and even those few are guarded under the surface. The movie breaths sadness – the cinematography is grey and lifeless. As a spectator, I struggle with its hopelessness in a movie that is very long even if a faint sense of hope enters at the very end. I appreciate the glimpse of a depressive China, not always seen from the outside, and the portrayal of less fortunate people without much choice or alternatives in their lives. It is dedicated to its fallen director Bo whose deception with the world radiates throughout the movie. Is it worth the watch? Absolutely and without doubt. Just not a joy ride. 

“If you acknowledge time, you should also acknowledge the soul.” Send me to the clouds (2019) by Teng Congcong is a movie about a “leftover woman”. At the beginning of the movie someone explains that in Chinese culture an unmarried woman over 27 is a leftover one, Sheng nü. The term refers to unmarried women (27+) as leftover food and it was made popular by a 2007 report by the Chinese government (All-China Women’s Federation). When a woman’s destiny is to be a wife and a mother, and when she is neither she is considered useless, a leftover. The government report was followed by several news articles, movies and tv series that chastised unmarried women or portrayed their anxiety for finding a partner. The proportion of unmarried women has increased in recent years; according to the China Population and Employment Statistics Yearbook 2023, more than half of 25-29 years old were not married and a survey in 2021 revealed that 44% of young women were planning not to marry. This has brought societal consequences to a society with deeply rooted patriarchy and unnatural gender balance due to the one-child policy (1979-2015) – in 2023 the birth rate was still 110 males for every female (and in the age group 15-19 the ratio is even higher). There are 31 million more men than women. 

But, back to the movie. The movie is about an unmarried financially struggling journalist Shenghan who finds out she has ovarian cancer and is unable to pay for the expensive surgery. This leads her to accept a job to find that money but also to reflect on life, mortality, sexual desire, loneliness and personal freedom. She is a complex character which is interesting to see as it makes her multidimensional and human, and not always likable. 

Girls Always happy (2018) by Yang Mingming (debut) has been compared to Greta Gerwig’s Ladybird (2017). It is a story about a financially challenged mother-daughter duo living in a leaky ground-floor apartment in a hutong (narrow laneway) and navigating economic pressures, love affairs and life in general. All this while bickering and fighting each other. Director Mingming herself plays the part of the daughter. The story is placed in a modern day Beijing and shows people trying to meet the amends while keeping a certain standard of living. It has some witty dialogue and a clear love/hate relationship between two unbearable characters but it also never really evolves or goes anywhere – which could also be considered as one of its merits to reflect the mundanity of life. It is a nice little quite quirky film but if you are not invested in the characters (which I was not always) it feels long and would have benefitted from stronger editing. 

Critically acclaimed The Farewell (2019) is an interesting Chinese American film that was an undeserving commercial flop in both the US and China. Based on the real life experience of the director and screen writer Lulu Wang, it is about a Chinese American woman Billi whose family moved to the US when she was six. Her grandmother in China she is very close to is diagnosed with a terminal illness with very little time left. The family decided not to tell the grandmother that she is going to die very soon and instead plan a family wedding around the time. For a Western audience as for Billi it is first very hard to accept that the collective (the family) can decide over the right of an individual to know about the life but as the movie progresses, it also gently educates about the cultural differences and understanding of the collective nature of certain family cultures. The main character is played by an outstanding Awkwafina (who won several international awards for the role, e.g. being the first actress of Asian background to win a lead actress Golden Globe). It is a lovely movie that takes time to warm up but then evolves into a gentle, understanding and caring small movie. 

The original titles of some of the Chinese movies are quite different from the English translation. This is the case of So Long my son (2019), another movie by a 6^th generation director Wang Xiaoshuai (Beijing Bicycle – see an earlier category) that won acting awards at the 2019 Berlin International Film Festival. The Mandarin Chinese name for the movie means something like enduring/eternal while the world lasts. The movie has a score of 100% in Rotten Tomatoes and is extremely highly acclaimed by critics and audience alike. It is a well deserved score and the movie is outstanding. It is almost hard to put in into words how multilayered and remarkable this movie is. It deals with themes such as loss, love and guilt in an extraordinary way, all in the context of the changing China and above all the individual price of the one-child policy and the subordination of personal lives to an inhuman system. It presents its themes in a subtle but effective way and all characters are multilayered, complex and human in a quiet way. It is incredibly skilled storytelling in which the cinematography and stills have a significant weight. Basically a story of two families of two boys born on the same day, and one of the boys dies accidentally. It is nuanced, elusive and deep. 

When Long Day’s Journey Into Night (2018) premiered in China, #Ican’tunderstandLongDay’sJourneyIntoNight trended on social media. It was a moderate box office hit in China and enthusiastically received by film critics around the world. I have heard about it so I was looking forward to seeing it. The director, Bi Gan, was clearly influenced by hallucinatory movie makers such as David Lynch and the likes, and clearly on a mission to create a dream-like film noir.  And comme d’habitude in film noir, there is a femme fatale and a man obsessed with her.  There are long takes, slow dialogues and a 59-minute long dream sequence that is best to watch with 3D glasses. A much acclaimed movie that for me is beautiful to look at but with lifeless and thin characters and an emotionless weak romance. It is non-linear and a bit nonsensical. It comes across pretentious and plotless, an empty artsy mess. I fail to see the geniusness that others have seen. It almost feels senseless to watch something this hollow after an absolutely outstanding movie that is So Long My Son. 

Others

Not belonging to any particular generation is Oxhide (2005), a fictionalised documentary film by then a 23-year old Liu Jiayin who basically filmed his family’s life in a tiny apartment in Beijing. The film is set entirely inside the apartment where Jiayin films his family who are playing somewhat fictionalised versions of themselves (according to Jiayin). It offers an unprecedented access to the reality of the urban Chinese working class which as an idea is more exciting than the film itself. What is interesting is that it is an intimate portray of a family and their challenges (mainly financial) in such a specific setting that is Beijing of the 2000s. The apartment is minuscule which brings its own set of challenges. It is to be commended for its social commentary of economic hardships in ‘contemporary’ China (even if filmed twenty years ago). It is interesting for all those reasons but also as a cinematographic product I found it only partially engaging. 

I also wanted to watch a Tibetan movie in Tibetan language. The director of Kekexili: Mountain Patrol (2004), Lu Chuan is not ethnically Tibetan but the film is filmed in location in the majestic Kekexili with mostly Tibetan actors speaking Tibetan. The film has a lot of merit for bringing into attention the illegal hunting of endangered Tibetan antelope and is credited to have risen public awareness of their situation.  Director Chuan is contemporary of some of the Sixth Generation directors but he does not share the same style or concerns, and opted for a different kind of storytelling. The cinematography of this movie is stunning, the landscape of Kekexili is rugged and majestic, and almost like one of the main characters in the movie. Kekexili is the largest and highest plateau in the world and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. 

The movie is above all about the protection of heritage, environment and wildlife. It is based on real protection brigade of the Tibetan antelopes that patrolled the plateau in the early 1990s to protect the animals from the fur traffic. In the movie, the mountain patrol fights against poachers that kill up to 10,000 antelopes a year and are ready to give their lives for the environment. It is an amazing movie of a frontier of civilisation, almost a western, in an isolated, hostile, rugged, dry environment of high altitude (that makes breathing difficult). The movie shows not only some Tibetan customs, music and rituals but also sheds light to the old Tibetan custom of sky/celestial burial in which a body is left to compose or be eaten by birds in a high mountain location – a buried body would mean the soul to be trapped as it will continue its journey after the physiological death. 

I saw Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress (2002) years ago and loved it. After reading the book (that was lovely but impressed me less), I watched it again with JK and it was almost as lovely and nostalgic as when I saw it the first time. It did not touch me as deeply as it did when I was young but I still loved its gorgeous visual storytelling and its deep heart. Directed by Dai Sijie, the author of the book, for me achieves what the book did not. The movie is sweet, nostalgic and beautiful. It is about love, growth, friendship, and the power of literature and the arts. In the movie, as in the book, two urban young men Luo and Ma are sent to the countryside during the Cultural Revolution to be re-educated and they meet the Little Chinese Seamstress. It is beautifully shot in a stunning landscape. It has melancholy and beauty, austerity and richness, harshness and tender, repression and rebels.   

One night during the southern summer holidays, JK and I are browsing the movie offer and would like to see something light but interesting. We decide on a Chinese movie Snow flake and a secret fan (2011) that has received mixed to negative reviews but results to be quite entertaining.  The movie introduces us to an old Chinese tradition that we were not aware of, Laotong, which means a kindred bond between two women that in most cases is meant to last for a lifetime. Laotong is meant to be more than a friendship, it is a lifelong enduring connection, often formalised through a signed contract. The Laotong women would provide each other much needed contact and support in a society in which a woman’s place is very restricted. In the movie there are two alternating timelines, one modern and one of the 19^th century China. In both timelines two women (yes yes, the same in both) go through life’s turbulences that put theirs Laotong into a test. 

My final viewing of a very long Chinese Film Festival is a documentary about health workers and the early days of the COVID Pandemic in Wuhan. Filmed in four different hospitals in February – April 2020 it is an outstanding testimony of human resilience, duty of care and sense of servitude. Produced and filmed by Hao Wu (a documentarist currently residing in New York), Weixi Chen and a third anonymous director. They were first granted access to hospitals and had to wear uncomfortable protections suites (just like the health care workers) for hours at a time without toilet breaks or opportunity to rest. They managed to produce a highly emotional and effective documentary that gives a human dimension to Wuhan, the birthplace of SARS-CoV2. The dedication, care, resilience and worry of the heath workers is exceptional. 

This concludes our massive, very long and super interesting Mainland China Film Festival ☺. It has been great but it is time to move on and give way to the Colombian Film Festival. 

A word about Pandas 

Just to finish the long and massive virtual stop in China, a few words about Pandas. Pandas eat about 20 kg of bamboo every day and can poo up to 40 tines. They are solidary animals and prefer a lonely life of eating and consuming as little energy as possible avoiding human contact and other Pandas.  They are cute but not up for hugs. There are about 1,864 Pandas in the wild and 600 in zoos around the world. Every Panda that is alive, belongs to China in one way or another. 

Photo WWF Australia 

Next stop: Colombia 

Thank you L for your proof reading!